Post events of Frozen, as told by the Duke of Weselton's Guard
by blaaze6
Summary: This is a story about the after events of Frozen, as told by the bigger guard of the Duke of Weselton.
1. Prologue

Prologue:

I stepped up from the creaky bed I was just laying on. My back was aching, and my eyes felt sore from the terrible sleep I had. I haven't been asleep too long, have I? I pulled out my rusty pocket watch, and checked the time quickly. 00:34. I hadn't been asleep for more than 3 hours, and yet I felt like I overslept. I checked outside of the window in my room. It was dark, no land in sight. Was this how the rest of the trip would be? I hoped not. At that moment, I wished that I hadn't been banished from Arendelle, and in fact been able to stay there. Their inns were homely, better than the ones in Weselton. I sighed and laid back down onto my bed, thinking about what had transpired throughout the past month.

To get a little bit of a backstory, let me start off by saying, I do not want to reveal my first name. That is not one of my priorities, but I will refer to the other characters by their real names. Of course, except for the ones who asked to be left out of this. Such as my "partner" during this adventure in Arendelle, the man who shall be named, "Sideburns".

I was born in the country of Denmark as the second child of the Krogh family. However, I was the only one who had lived, as my older brother, Rustan, died as a young infant. I grew up fairly well, my father being a nobleman of the city I was born in. He paid a lot of money to get me properly trained for crossbow lessons, which I learned at the young age of 9. My mother was so proud of my skills. However, tragedy struck my family when my mother, Toni Krogh, died from an unknown illness. My father was never the same from that point on. I struggled as a teenager, and my dreams of being free as an adult were cut short as my father, who thought that I was a beligerent idiot and was always pressuring me to join the forces, actually forced me to join the forces of the city I was from.

Life in Denmark as a soldier was troubling, to say the least. I got into many fights with the other servicemen, and finally, they've had enough of it, and transferred me to Weselton. At the age of 25, I was moving to a different area that I did not know of. My father didn't even say goodbye to me, the rotten bastard. The journey didn't take long, but it was an area that was new to me, but I was ready to take it by the horns. Quickly, I was humbled by a few of the men there, who told me that I should wisen up. They beat me for the first few weeks, but I quickly snapped into order. Then, at 27, I met her.

Norma Thuesen was her name, at the time. I was performing my duties as a guard of the Royal Ball of Weselton. I was quickly moving up the ranks at the time, so I was a trusted guard already. I was standing at my post, having an overview of the area, when I caught the gaze of a small women, who was dressed in a nice, red dress, and had beautiful brunette hair. She matched my look, and actually started to walk over. Now, at the time of this happening, I had no idea what to do. I have had no experience with women before, so to have one approach me was absolutely crazy. I hope I kept my stoic look on my face. She said, "Hello, sir. I noticed you looking at me, and I'd just like to say, you are a man I would like to look at, as well. Did that come out wrong?" I nodded my head, and got a huge smile from excitement. Dammit, I can't show personality, or there will be consequences. But, as I responded, I noticed that she actually made me laugh. Laughing? I haven't done that in a long time. We talked for what seemed to be hours. Suddenly, I noticed the head of the guard storming over by me. "KROGH! What are you doing?" He yelled in his booming voice. I struggled to say anything, and finally just got back to guarding.

I stood there guarding for another couple of minutes, when the head of the guard came back to me. "Krogh. You may take a 10 minute break, but only if you get STRAIGHT back to guarding, do you understand me?" He exclaimed. I agreed, and pulled out the fish sandwich that I had packed. I took one bite from it when I noticed a shadow over my sandwich. "Krogh!" yelled an... oddly feminine voice. I stood up, and turned to face, Norma. She found my frightened reaction hilarious, and she reached her hand out. "Will you dance with me, Mr.?" I took her up on this offer. We danced for a few minutes, until she said, "Hey, let's go out to the balcony, and talk there!"

We went out to the balcony, and looked over at this woman's face. I saw pure joy, and actual fun coming from it as I told my jokes. As we spoke more and more, I started to actually fall in love a little more. At this point, I looked at my pocket watch and noticed that I was 2 minutes overdue. I swore under my breath and told her I had to go. She got a little upset, but told me that she would see me soon. I replied with the same thing, and left swiftly.

As I arrived at my post, the head of the guard was there at my post. "KROGH! WHERE WERE YOU?!" He fumed. I apologized and fumbled to my spot. "No, Krogh, I have a new position for you. You get to guard the Duke himself." I cringed upon hearing of this. The Duke was known as an annoying twerp who believed he knew everything. I visibly got upset, but I understood why he did it. I wasn't fit as a guard of the palace, especially with Norma meeting me that night.

The next few nights were great, I met with Norma a few more times, and after the last night, she agreed to marry me, and become Norma Krogh. She had to beg her father to allow her to marry me, as he was currently searching through possible marriage candidates for her, but he finally agreed. We got married in a large ceremony, and I loved her ever since.

A few years passed, and at age 35, the Duke of Weselton had learned that the King and the Queen of one of our trade partners, Arendelle, had passed away tragically, on a boat heading for Corona. Since their 2 daughters were young, and not much was known about them, Arendelle was left without rulers for 3 years. Finally, in the 3rd year, we learned that the eldest daughter had finally come of age for coronation. We recieved a letter, and left by ship at once.

I'm sure you all know what happens next.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Sailing

I awoke to one of my shipmates shaking me awake. "Wake up! It's time to get on deck!" I slowly stood up from the hard mattress. I grumbled under my breath and followed the man. I noticed Sideburns standing at the end of the hall. He nodded towards me. Always wanting to be polite, I nodded back.

We got up to the deck. It was a windy day, but the temperature was nice anyways. The sky was cloudy, but no rainclouds. This was good.

"Today, you two are going to be put to work. I know it's not the usual, but the Duke specifically ordered you two to be put to work."

I looked at Sideburns. Of course he did this, this is normal for the Duke. I scoffed, and apparently the man noticed. "Are you objecting your leader's orders, boy? You may be larger than me, but I still can pack a good punch!" The man telling us this was scrawny, and was about half the size of me. I didn't need any more criminal records, so I shook my head. "I thought so, son. You oughta respect your higher ups. You may have been treated well in Arendelle, but this is my ship, and I ain't letting anyone take it over. Now, today, you guys are gonna have specific jobs. Both of you must be best of friends, so you are going to be seperated, so you won't talk." This was perfect for me. I knew next to nothing about Sideburns, and we barely spoke to each other as it is.

"Slick, yeah, you, with the sideburns. You're gonna be our cleaner. That's right, you'll be carrying around a bucket of water and some cloths, and you'll be going to town on the dirtier parts of the ship." Sideburns obviously groaned at these news, but he agreed to the job. "Now uh, you, Mr. Big Boy, since you disrespected me, you're going to be our cook. That's right, I hope you know gourmet meals, boy." I nodded. I didn't know any gourmet meals, but I knew a few meals that would feed a few scrawny men like on this ship. The man then let us do our jobs. I stepped down the creaky stairs. As I stepped into the kitchen, I obviously knew why he gave me the job as a punishment. The kitchen was a complete mess. Obviously, the men didn't care about the cleanliness of the room. I heard a voice behind me say, "Yeah, boy, before you cook for us, you gotta clean this up. Too tough for ya, big guy?"

I broadened my shoulders, grabbed a cloth from the wall, and started scrubbing. It helps that the room was really moist. Otherwise, the room would have been Hell to clean. I finished within 2 hours, and the man from the deck of the ship came in to check on me. "Hey, it actually looks pretty good clean. Nice job, boy. Now, get cooking. You can find fish and foodstuffs in that door over by the stove over there." I followed his finger to the door, and checked inside of the room. The room was well organized, the different fish were in their seperate boxes, and there were salt containers. I started cooking my favorite food, smothered cod. As I began to finish, the rest of the crew were in the dining room. I brought out the meal, and they were surprised. "Wow, I'm surprised a boy like you knew how to cook." One of them said. I nodded, and sat down to eat.

This was the schedule for the next week. Sideburns had gotten upgraded from his cleaning job to a job directing the ship. I continued on as the cook, but the captain let me fish once in awhile, to replenish my supply.

One day, I woke up from my worn out bed, stretching my hurt back out some more, when I noticed something outside. Storm clouds. The captain walked into my room, "Boy, get on deck, we need you to help protect the boat from wind damage." I was thinking about how lucky the Duke was, how he was able to stay in his quarters, as Sideburns and I were forced to help the crew. I followed the captain to the deck to survey the scene. Storm clouds were coming from East, and we had to get ready. We spent a few hours preparing, as the storm finally reached us. The ship was rocking back and forth so swiftly, I almost lost my lunch, but most of us made it through without vomiting.

Sadly, there were a few men lost that day. The man who had forced me to clean the kitchen up was tossed off of the side as the ship swayed to one side. Another person lost was the man who woke me up the second day we were on the ship. The other few we lost I had not talked with, but our morale was lowered from the experience. The hail and the wind produced a lot of damage to the ship, so we spent the next few days cleaning that up. That was, fortunately, the only storm we had encountered on our trip.

The day after we cleaned up, we found our target. Weselton. It was in sight, and we were slated to arrive that night. The Duke made a trip out of his quarters, and didn't pay attention to Sideburns and I. He only spoke to the captain, and was acting like a real jerk. I cooked a special meal for all of the boys that night. I was saving the meal the whole trip, it was a lone chicken that I found on the ship. The whole crew was surprised, but glad to see it. We dined well that night, and the captain even approached me. "Boy, I was wrong about you. You were a little hesitant to follow orders at first, but you fell into the groove by the end of the trip. I'd like to thank you for the dinners we've had."

That night, as we got out on deck to leave the ship, we noticed a crowd of people. "I wonder what they're there for," asked one of the shipmates, "is it because of the Duke?" As we reached land, we noticed that the look on their faces was not happiness, but more of anger. We found this was true when they were throwing garbage at us. "You bastards! Why would you try to kill the queen? You're no different than serial killers!" We were obviously getting the brunt of the crowd, Sideburns and I. I slipped through the crowd, trying to escape them. I had a few punches thrown at me, but no real damage done.

As I got home, I started packing my things immediately. "You're home! I heard what happened, and we will always support you." my lovely wife told me. "Norma, gather up our things and get the kids, we're leaving to Corona." I replied swiftly. "What, why? Do you want to visit your uncle?"

"No, it's not that, Norma. We need to leave, they're going to murder you guys if we don't leave now!"

She understood what I meant, grabbed our daughters, and we left straight to Corona.


	3. Chapter 2

"How's the old girl doing?" I asked Norma, referring to our horse, Skonhed. Skonhed was a beautiful Knabstrupper that we had gotten from Norma's father.

"Oh, she got a little ill about a week ago, but she's better now." She reached a hand out to Skonhed and let the old girl lick her hand. "She trusts you more than she trusts me. Should I grab Dejilg?" I thought for a second. Dejilg is a horse we had gotten earlier that year, Norma thought she was the cutest thing. However, should we pack all of our things, and take a carriage, or should we make a faster exit and only take each other. Norma saw the look on my face and responded, "Jorge can hold Belinde. The kids will ride with me." I nodded and jumped onto Skonhed. We set off.

We traveled until the early morning, and we stopped into the next town over, Gereby. I stopped at the local inn, to see if I could rent a room for the night. I pushed open the creaky doors and noticed a lone lantern lit up by the counter. An average sized man was at the counter. "I apologize for the darkness, we had to sell most of our lanterns to stay in business. But do not worry, the rooms are well-lit! Would you like one, fine sir?"

"Yes, room for four please. Two are children. We need a place to stay for the night." I replied swiftly.

"Ah, yes, room for four. Come with me, sir." I followed him up the dark stairs to the room. "This is your room, and it comes with free matches! That will be thirty, please." I reached into my pocket and pulled out my bag of coins. I emptied the bag out onto the table and counted thirty. The remainder of the coins I pushed back into the bag. "Thank you sir, I hope you will find the room to be of utmost quality."

I called Norma and my children up to the room, and we finally were able to rest without worry of our lives.

That is, until the time for our lunch had come, and the man working the counter forced us out. "I cannot stand one man who will haphazardly try to assassinate the queen that the people love. Out, out, out!"

I protested at first, but I gave up. There was no reasoning with this man. We jumped back on our horses and rode for another town. We were making good time, when we heard Jorge say, "Ma, I'm feeling sick." We slowed down and pulled over to the side of the trail.

"Jorge, what's wrong? How are you feeling sick?" I grabbed Belinde from him and cuddled her.

"It's my stomach, it's feeling bad. I'm really nervous about what you and Pa are talking about." He replied. Norma and I looked at each other, and Norma replied. "Well, why don't we ride to the next town over? We can't be that far away." She winked at me, so I knew it was my time to speak. "Yes, son. You know, when I first started out as a soldier in the forces, I always felt a pit in my stomach. What if we get invaded? What if the person next to me doesn't come back? What does my lousy father think of me? But I learned to just push those nervous feelings aside, and just keep on going."

Jorge nodded, and excitedly said, "I know what you mean, Pa, let's keep on!" Norma flashed me a smile. I handed Belinde back over to Jorge and we kept on going to the next town, Bistensee. When I used to visit my uncle, we always rode through this town, so we must be close. I stopped at the inn with Norma and the children, and saw my good friend, Erik at the counter. "Erik! It's been a long time!"

"Hey, it's the big guy! What's been going on lately? Hear about that attempted assassination of the Queen of Arendelle? We've had a few guys travel around here telling us about how Elsa manhandled those dudes like they were children. Glad she didn't turn out like William of the Netherlands, eh?" I nodded, while keeping my head down.

"What happened to your father? He give the inn to ya?" He replied quickly, "Yeah, he died a few months ago, sadly. Such a shame, I loved that old man. You guys need a room? I'll give 'em for ya on the house."

"Thanks, Erik. Norma and I appreciate it." We shook hands and he showed us to our room. "Ah, Jorge! You're getting so big now! How old are you, now?"

"I'm 8!" Jorge replied, smiling brightly. "8? Wow, soon I'll be calling you the big guy!" He winked at me, and walked out of the room. We got onto our beds and immediately got some rest. We woke up at about midnight to a loud ruckus outside of our room. "He's in here, I'm telling you guys! The guy who tried to kill Queen Elsa!" "What a bastard, we need to kill him!" "I bet he's laughing about it right now, the sick man he is." I yelled out to them, "Go away!"

"Ah, he is in there! You see, I was right." "Get him out of there and stone him!" I asked Norma and the kids to help me push the dresser in front of the door, to try and see if we could block their entrance. "What's that noise in there?" "Is he blocking us from getting in?" "What a bastard, thinking he could escape!"

We started to look for an exit, when Erik yelled out from behind the door, "The window! Go out the window!" I guess the ruckus was that loud, they couldn't hear him. We each climbed out of the window one by one, and made it out, seemingly. I called for Skonhed and Dejilg, and we got out of there.

"Norma, we've got to blend in more. They know what I look like. I need to go incognito." I yelled over to her as we were riding swiftly. "Oh, no, you aren't saying what I think you're saying, are you?"

I needed to shave my facial hair.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Traveling Part 2

We stopped at the side of the road. "Norma, do you have one of those mirrors I could borrow?"

"Ah, no, I forgot to grab one," She responded as she was searching her pockets, "You should use some of that water over there. It looks pretty reflective." I nodded and walked over to the water. I pulled out one of the bolts to my crossbow from my bag, and pulled the head off of it. Well, here goes. I looked into the water, and saw my face. I started with the right side of my face. I began with the top of the sideburn, slowly easing the way down my face. "Damn," I thought, "Too dull." I reached into my pocket. "I know I brought my metal sharpener to Arendelle with me. Did it fall out of my pocket?" The metal sharpener I used was a nice rock I found that sharpened my metal pretty well. I didn't want to use my sword, which was hiding underneath my coat, so I began to scour the river edge for a different rock. I found a great one, it was flat on one side. I started to scrape the metal bolt head against it, and then I brought my face over the water again. I looked down at my face in the water, and began to cut down the right sideburn again. I brought the bolt head down from the resting point at the top of my sideburn, and sliced the facial hair from that area right down. It looked somewhat scruffy, but it would have to do from this point forward.

I looked up at the sky for a moment. Rain clouds, I noticed. Hopefully, it wouldn't start raining while I'm doing this. I started the metal bolt head at the top of my other sideburn once more, and started to slowly ease it down. I was making good progress when a deer jumped out of the tree next to me, and startled me. I got a cut and a big bald spot on my left sideburn. I shooed the deer away, when I noticed that I dropped the bolt head. "Fantastic," I thought sarcastically. I got down on one of my knees and poked through the grass looking for it, when I heard a voice yelling, "Honey, we need to go!"

I gave up on the process, picked up my bag, reattached it to my belt, and ran to Skonhed. I jumped on, and Norma told me, "Belinde's getting sick, she's got a little bit of a cold. We should take off before the rain comes." I agreed and took off right away. We rode off to our next destination, Raisdorf. We arrived in the late afternoon, hitched our horses up to the inn, and walked in. The man at the counter had balding gray-ish hair, and immediately burst out laughing as soon as I walked in. "What is with your facial hair? Making a new fashion statement?"

"Haha, very funny. Can I get a room for 4?" He giggled and said, "Sure, show me 40 coins." I reached into my pocket, and grabbed what I thought would be about 40 coins. "If that's not enough, tell me tomorrow, we need some rest." He nodded with his warm smile, and showed us up to our room. "Have a nice night, Fashion Maker!" He told me, before chuckling in a very high voice. He nodded to Norma and the kids, with his big smile, and then left the room.

"Honey, are you sure you know where you're taking us? Where we're going? And do you know if we'll even be safe?" Norma asked me. "Norma, do you trust me? I know where my uncle lives, he'll provide us with a place to stay. He's able to protect us easily. He is related to the King of Corona, you know."

"Yeah, but they're like, very distant, right? 5th cousins or something like that? And how do you know if he'll accept us?" Norma questioned. I sighed and replied, "He's my uncle, I know he will allow us to live with him. If not, then we could find a place to stay in there. You know they won't know who I am without my facial hair, right?"

"I still don't feel safe. You could protect us, but then again, you versus hundreds of men? I don't think you can do that." I was starting to get a little angry at Norma. "Norma, listen. I will protect us, you can believe that. In my pocket, I have hundreds of bolts, and they're all fully functional. You don't think I can reload at a fast pace? It's why I've trained as a crossbow expert for all these years, for God's sake."

"Listen to me, I think we should keep on moving. We aren-" I cut Norma off. "No, you listen to me, Norma! If we keep on moving, we will die, at the hands of a bandit or an angry civilian! I don't want to take those chances, we are staying in Corona!" I crescendoed throughout my speech, getting louder and louder with each word. I looked over at the Norma, and her lip was quivering. One of her eyebrows started to sink lower on her forehead, and as I looked over at the children, I noticed that I had gotten too loud. Belinde had started to cry. I looked back over at Norma, and was met with a slap. For a split second, I considered slapping her as well, but I decided that it would get me nowhere. Norma stepped past me, put Belinde into her bed, calmed her down. Norma then said to me, "I thought this household was a democracy." She then laid down for bed, leaving Jorge and I awake.

I sat down on my bed thinking about what had just transpired. Jorge sat down next to me, and whispered to me, "Pa, I think we should stay in Corona." I nodded. I then left to the bathroom for our room, telling Jorge that I would finish shaving my facial hair. I stepped into the bathroom, reached into my pocket for a match, and lit up the lantern in the room. I grabbed the razor and a bar of soap, and applied some soap to the area I missed. I started to shave down the left sideburn again, looking to get any areas I missed. I then shaved the scruffy right side, applying soap and then bringing down the razor. I looked in the mirror, and noticed that I looked a lot different with just a mustache. I stepped out of the bathroom, and asked Jorge how it looked. He stuck out a thumbs up. I smiled, and then laid down for bed. "You go to bed too, Jorge. We'll be fine in the morning."

The next morning, I woke up slowly, my back screaming in agony. I first sat up on the side of the bed, and then rose to my feet. Norma was already up. "We need to talk about last night." I nodded, and then sat down again.

"I understand that you were both tired and upset at having to lose your facial hair. But it wasn't polite raising your voice at me. However, I know that I should not have slapped you. That was a bad decision on my part. So, I just wanted to apologize for the slap. It was unnecessary."

I nodded, and replied, "I would like to apologize for raising my voice, as well. As you said, I was tired, and very upset about my facial hair. But in addition to that, I was a fool. A damn fool, who scared the kids. This has been our first fight in a long time, and I'm glad we didn't go to unnecessary routes, like that one guy in Weselton. I can't remember his name, but he ended up divorcing his wife because she didn't bring him the right flowers. Do you remember that?"

She giggled and said, "I remember, yes. He was the one with the funny twirly mustache. Gregor, right?" I nodded with a smile, and we embraced. "I have a proposition for you, Norma."

"What is it, honey?"

"We stay in Corona for half a week, see if we're safe, and if not, we keep on movie. Does that sound good to you?"

"It does."

She hugged me tightly, and then we decided to leave for the rest of the day, off to Corona. The smiling man at the counter handed me two coins, and said, "Oh, you got your facial hair looking better! Great job, mate!" And then giggled again. I looked at him bewildered. "Oh, you gave me two coins extra, and I couldn't cheat a family out of two coins. Have a nice day, family!" I nodded, and we left. Off to Corona, we go.


	5. Chapter 4

I was riding on Skonhed as Norma and the kids were riding Dejilg. We had passed through the rest of Raisndorf pretty quickly, with hunger as the only thing to stop us. We stopped several times, hunting for food and creating a fire when needed. We had run into no trouble at all for most of the trip, until the 4th day in.

We were setting up for our meal, and I had just stoked the fire, when I heard a little bit of hooting and hollering. I whispered and told my family to quiet down, and to get down. I snuck around a tree that was nearby, the noise seemed to be coming from down the road, when I saw them. There were about 5 men, joking around with each other. They each held a mug, seemingly getting drunker by the second. As they stumbled down the road, I went and got my crossbow and bolts. I set them down when I was stoking the fire, but I still carry my sword wherever I go. I was watching by the tree, when all of a sudden, Belinde started crying. A chubby man looked up to find the noise, and noticed me.

They all shut up and looked straight up at me. "Well, well, look at this fella. Lookin' all fancy in his red coat, eh fellas?" They burst out into laughter. "I'm just here with my family, we're having a meal. We're travelling to Corona." The tallest one, who had a scar across his cheek said, "Corona, eh? My cousin lived there, yaknow. Yaknow what I heard?" I gulped quickly, and replied, "What did you hear, sir?"

He grinned, and said, "We heard the guards are less strict with law-breakers, there. So, uh, fella..." He pulled out a knife, and then finished his sentence. "We gonna do this the easy way, or the hard way?" I dove to the side of the road, my military training is coming in handy. I got out my crossbow, and loaded a bolt. "Oh, the fancy man's got a crossbow, Get him boys!" I hid behind a tree, and poked my head out. "Don't make me do this! I'm trained!" My voice wavered. A few bolts were shot at me, but all of them missed. One of the men, small and chubby, started charging me, so I shot a bolt at his leg. He fell immediately, and started screaming. I yelled to the man, "I'm sorry, but I had no choice!" I loaded another bolt into the crossbow and ran across the road to avoid the bolts being shot at me. I shot one of the men in his arm, this man was even smaller than the other, but he was skinnier. He fell as well. I yelled to this man, "Stay on the ground, please! I don't want to hurt any of you anymore!"

With 2 down, and 3 to go, I considered my strategies. I decided to go with my ranged crossbow solution. I crouched down, and aimed for a larger man's leg. I guess the wind hit the arrow, however, because it went right into his nether region. He was screaming in a lot of agony. I felt bad for him, that's not anything any man should feel, but I wouldn't want to end his life. I shot him a merciful look, and then I looked around for the fourth man. I had found him with another crossbow in his hands. This must be the same one who has been firing bolts at me. This is going to be tricky, I thought. He fired a few bolts, but he missed entirely. I aimed at him, and took a shot. It had gotten his crossbow, a good idea on my part. I then started to run forward at him while aiming my crossbow, and yelled, "Stay on the ground, or I will shoot! Please, just stay on the ground!" He was pleading for his life, when I heard a scream. I whispered to myself, "Norma!" and ran over to the side of the road. "This your harlot, fancy man?" He was holding her by the hair, and she was hitting him repeatedly. "You better not hurt her!" I yelled to him. He chuckled heartily, and then said to Norma, "Oh, you little whore, you know you ain't gonna do nothing to me." I pulled another bolt from my bag, and placed it on my crossbow. "Hey, be careful, fella. I know you don't want to hurt your family." He shot me a smug look, and when Jorge stood up to try and punch him, the man pushed him away. "Aww, the little ones are fighting back, that's sweet." I screamed at him, "DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THE CHILDREN!" He just laughed. I started breathing heavily.

"LET. HER. GO. NOW." I yelled intimidatingly, as I aimed at the man. "Or what, you're gonna shoot me? Think about what your kids will see. They'll see you kill a man in cold blood. You don't want their precious minds to be scarred, do ya?" I stared at the man with an angry demeanor. "Oh, but the children are precious, yes! I think their heads would look great above my fireplace." At the words of this, Norma screamed, frightened. "You wouldn't dare!" I yelled at the man. "Oh, but you don't know me, do you?" Adrenaline makes you do strange things. I started to run forward with the crossbow, and I aimed for this man's head. He was in the middle of his speech, "Do you want to know who I am, fella? I am the leader of the-" when I had shot the bolt. The bolt went straight up to his nose and bounced off. I pulled my crossbow down for a second, and audibly questioned what had happened. I thought for a second about it, when I realized that the bolt I had used was the one I pulled the head off of to shave with. "Well, there goes that." I thought. He recoiled quickly, holding his nose. "Ahh, you bastard, I think you broke my nose!" Norma slipped from his grasp, and grabbed the knife from his pocket. "What's this harlot doing?" She jumped on his back, and started stabbing him repeatedly in the shoulders. "Ah, no, stop, you bitch!" She finally jumped off, and then pushed him down.

"It is not nice to call people names!" Norma started kicking the man repeatedly. I stood back and watched for a little bit. He was lying down, crying, and pleading for mercy. She finally began to let up on the guy. "You are going to be Mr. Nice Guy from now on, do you understand me?" He cried back to her, "Yes, yes!" He started to limp off to the road, when Norma kicked him in the arse. "Next time, watch what you say in front of the children, you... you lout! And don't pull a woman's hair!"

Norma had gotten the children to settle down, and I finally asked her a question about what just happened. "Uhh, Norma... where did you uh...?"

She shot me an angry look and said, "Don't even ask, let's get out of here, okay?"

The men in the road had all crawled away, leaving us alone. Their egos were probably all destroyed, but honestly, I felt bad. They were men who were trying to get money like the rest of us, but they chose the more difficult journey. Before one of them crawled off, I apologized to him, and he coughed, gave me a dirty look, and kept on crawling. I shrugged. We then got on the horses, and rode away.

Jorge would not be quiet about what had transpired. He had begun to love Norma and I even more, it seemed. Norma kept trying to settle him down, but he wasn't having any of it. She was also looking a little upset, as well. Belinde was indifferent. Then again, which 1 year olds aren't indifferent? We had been riding for awhile. We stopped to rest that night. I had a dream that night, a very strange dream.

It was... my father. He came up to me, in a distant world of white, and he shook my hand. "I'm proud of you, son. Feel free to come back home, anytime." I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I wanted to say many things. Things like, "Why were you so cold? What was wrong with you?" but I was unable to speak. Suddenly, a dark tinge came over everything, and my father's speaking had become deformed. I wasn't able to hear what he was saying, and I felt upset. I had actually started to miss the air of Denmark, and the fresh bread made everyday in the bakery next door, and my childhood friends.

I woke up feeling strange, indeed. It was sunrise, prime time to leave for Corona. I sat up, and then stood up. I shook Norma awake, and told her, "We're off, let's go." She woke the kids up gently, telling them we were close to Corona, and that they could see their Uncle Jer soon.

I couldn't wait to tell her what our next destination was.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Corona

As we were riding to Corona, I began to think about what I had truly done. I had almost killed a few men, and although they were dangerous to my family and I, they were still men with lives. I hadn't fully thought of what had happened until this point. The lead man was truly insane, however. What he had said about my children was frightening me. "I think their heads would look great above my fireplace." This man seemed sick in the head. And even worse, I interrupted him in the middle of a speech about who he was. The only source of finding out information about this man, and I stopped it. I have the feeling that this man won't stop, either. I have a feeling we'll see him again, and I'm scared of what might happen if he does.

I shook my head, and focused my mind back on the horse. Skonhed was still trucking. She's not only a beautiful creature, she is also a powerhouse. I glanced over to Norma. Dejilig was a bit more of a powerhouse than Skonhed, but both could probably compete for a long period of time. We were not far from Corona, and the horses should be able to make it.

Norma glanced over as I was looking at Dejilig. She said to me, "Sweetie, once we get to Corona, may we speak?" I nodded, and noticed her solemn look on her face. She must have felt bad about what she had done to that psychopath. I shifted my view back ahead, and we rode on to Corona.

We arrived at Corona in the late afternoon. I pulled out my pocket watch. It was 13:16. Nice time, I think. With our horses in tow, we approached a guard. "Good afternoon, sir. Do you know perhaps where I could find Jeronimus Krogh?"

Now, at this point, I feel a bit more comfortable with revealing my name. Since you have listened to this story this whole time, I know I can trust you. I have the same name as my uncle, Jeronimus Krogh. I am the 2nd, however, as my family didn't want to get us confused. This may seem ridiculous to you, but this was decided over a bet during their drinking times. My uncle remembered the bet, and my father actually followed it. I couldn't believe it.

"Jeronimus Krogh? Yeah, he's down by the barber. Mr. Raun, I believe." He then started snickering. "You should visit him, your mustache isn't the best for you." I rolled my eyes, nodded, and decided to move on. "Oh, come on, it's just a little bit of a joke. Lighten up, eh?" I turned around and gave him a smile. He gave me a thumbs up back. "See, there you go, pal!"

We kept on walking down the street, looking out for a barber named Mr. Raun, and his office. I was walking down one way of the street, when Jorge tugged on my coat. "Pa! Over there!" Sure enough, there was a barber pole at the area he was pointing. I smiled, and thanked him. I hitched up Skonhed to the hitchpost, and told Norma to watch Dejilig and the kids. I walked inside, and talked to the man at the counter. "Hello, sir! Would you know where I could find a certain Jeronimus Krogh?"

The man smiled, he had crooked teeth. "Of course! Let me show you where his house is." He led me to the window, and pointed me to a large white house across the road. "Yes, that's it right there. Most of the times I've met him, he's been a drunkard, but don't let that steer you away. Now..." He stepped back over by the counter. "Would you like anything done? Your facial hair could use a touching-up." I turned my back to him, and replied, "Thank you for the offer, but I will need to come back later. This is somewhat urgent."

"Okay sir, I'll be sure to see you again in the future!" He said while he flashed his crooked smile. I walked out of the door, back to Norma, the children, and the horses. I led them all to my uncle's house. I hitched up Skonhed and Dejilig to the stable to the side of his house. As we finished that, we approached the door to my uncle's house, and I knocked. Within seconds, the door opened, and I was met by my cousin, Rejnar. "Cousin!" We immediately hugged, this was the first time we had seen each other in years.

"Come in and sit down!" As I brought my family in, the look on his face began to drop slightly, but he fixed it with a smile. "Oh, you're bringing the whole household with ya, aren't ya?" I smiled, and nodded. I viewed the room that Rejnar had directed us to. It had 3 chairs, a loveseat, and a table in the middle. Rejnar went into the kitchen as Norma and I sat down on the loveseat with each other. Norma was holding Belinde, and Jorge sat on a chair. Norma sighed, and closed her eyes for a second. Rejnar then yelled from the kitchen, "Would you like some snaps, Jer?"

I glanced at Norma, who nodded. I replied to Rejnar, "None for me, thank you, but Norma would like a glass." He walked back in, carrying a glass in each hand. He set one down on the table in front of Norma, and then kept the other for himself. "So, Jer..." He cleared his throat. "What are you doing here in Corona? Didn't you get drafted over to Weselton? I know it's not much of a far distance, but it must have taken a couple of days. Why'd you come here?" Norma reached for her drink, and then said, "I'll lay Belinde and Jorge to bed. We haven't slept in a home in a long time." She set her drink down on the table, and brought Belinde and Jorge to the bedroom closest to them. "You're lucky we have extra guest rooms, cousin!" Rejnar joked around.

I responded to Rejnar, "Oh, it's a very long story, if you don't mind me telling. However, do you want the somewhat abridged story, or do you want the very long story?" He opened his mouth to answer, when a door to the cellar had opened. "Rejnar, what did I tell you about letting strangers into the house?" It was my uncle, Jer Krogh.

He looked straight at me, and then started to talk. "Well, if it isn't number two." He stumbled over to me, and gave me a hug. It was obvious that he was a little tipsy. "How ya doing, Jeronimus the Second? Stopped at Raun's and got a shave, I see." I nodded, even though that wasn't the truth. "Well, why ya here, Jer? Tell us why."

Norma walked back in, smiled at my uncle Jer, and then sat back down next to me. "Ah, this is your lovely wife, correct? Ahh, I remember when you guys got married, I didn't think you guys would have lasted this long! Harharhar!" He laughed loudly and heartily. Norma smiled weakly, but returned to her solemn look. She whispered to me, "You should tell them the full story."

I nodded, and told them, "Well, like I said, it's a very long story. And since I know you guys aren't going anywhere, I will tell you guys the full thing." Rejnar nodded, and set down his drink so he could listen, and Uncle Jer snapped into a serious state. I was ready to tell the full story.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The Full Story - Part 1

I leaned forward on the loveseat, as Norma threw her head back and closed her eyes. Uncle Jer and Rejnar were both seated on two chairs. I started to speak.

"Well, I was assigned to guarding the Duke of Weselton, which I'm sure you know." They both nodded. "A few years into my service, you know that the kingdom of Arendelle had lost their rulers, King Agdar and Queen Idun." Again, they nodded. "A few years later, which will have been about a month or two ago, we had gotten the message that their eldest daughter, Elsa, had finally come of age for becoming the Queen. She had turned 21. This meant that the Duke, being the ruler of our Dukedom, was invited. He was creepily excited about this, ordering us to be transported immediately. Since Sideburns and I were his guards, we got to go along." Uncle Jer started chuckling to himself. I asked him, "What's so funny, Uncle Jer?" He replied with, "Oh, you know, Sideburns, being a nickname, it's just kinda... just continue." He had gotten back into his serious state quickly. Again, that was a special ability of his.

I continued, "We all sailed on a large ship to Arendelle, weather did not bother us at all. It was a beautiful trip, and I enjoyed every minute of it. We had gotten to Arendelle in about 5 days, which was great timing. We arrived in the daytime, the weather, again, was beautiful, and the sea air brought back memories of Denmark. The Duke was spouting insane babble about exploiting secrets or something, and I just didn't care enough to pay attention. He was creeping me out here, and I just looked at him shifty-eyed. He was getting a little suspicious, for sure, but I can't break my code and go against him, that's just not right. So we continued onto the castle to meet the Queen and her sister. The Queen, I couldn't find at all, but the sister was giddy, it seemed, to actually meet people. They didn't open the doors at all for some unknown reason."

Rejnar picked up his drink and took a sip, and then asked, "Who was this sister? Did you meet her?" I shook my head, "Her name was Anna. I talked to her a little bit later, but nothing more than pleasantries. The Duke had to leave to the Coronation ceremony, but we weren't allowed in because we weren't royalty. Sideburns and I stood outside of the door to the room, it was a beautiful piece they were singing. Heimr Arnadalr, I believe it was. Anyways, I guess you only experience Coronation ceremonies once. The Duke walked out, and led us to the ballroom, where the Queen was holding a ball. Of course, the Duke went up to ask the Queen for a dance, but she had her sister dance for her. Sideburns and I scoffed at the Duke. His annoying behavior was getting, well, rather annoying." Uncle Jer interrupted again, "So, when are ya gonna get to the part where you come here, Bear?" Bear was my nickname as a teenager, I grew in my facial hair quickly, and my Uncle was jealous. Thanks to my stocky appearance, he started calling me Bear. "Just let him finish, Dad." Rejnar told Uncle Jer. I nodded to Rejnar, he nodded back, and I continued.

"The Queen stayed up by her throne, but the sister wandered off to do other things, I assume. I stayed by the food, stealing these little sandwiches that just tasted delicious. I couldn't find any smothered cod, but the food they had was still really good. The other guard went off to mingle with the other countries, I assume, as with the Duke. As I stood by the food, I had a fair amount of fun just studying people across the room. After a few hours, the Duke pulled me and Sideburns to his side, to talk with a few of the dignitaries. We spoke to the French Dignitary and the Danish Dignitary, I believe. The Danish Dignitary was a great guy, reminded me of Pa, back home. Anyways, as I was speaking to the Danish Dignitary on my own, reminiscing, I, all of a sudden, noticed the Princess and the Queen were both yelling at each other. I directed my attention to that, it was something about a glove. I walked forward to the Duke, and the Queen started to get anxious for some strange reason. These didn't really make sense to me, at all, until the Queen's next action. She turned around, swinging her fist around, and you will not believe what happened next."

Norma actually got interested at this point, she hadn't actually heard the full story, only the abridged story of what she heard from other people, that I was a maniac who only wanted to kill the Queen. Rejnar tried guessing for a little bit, but his guesses weren't getting anywhere. I told them all, "She had somehow summoned ice, and it almost killed the people who were standing closest to her. It was very pointy, so the Duke, getting really feisty at this point, had started to chase her around. Of course, Sideburns and I had to follow him to make sure he didn't get killed at all. She tried to tell us to stay back, but the Duke tried to run for her. She fired another blast, I guess, and we all slipped. The Duke started calling her a monster, yada yada. The Princess and this young man, who represented the Southern Isles, I believe, had both been chasing after her. We had all gotten back to our feet, and then stuck around. Soon afterwards, it actually started snowing. The Princess and the young man approached us, the Duke threw us in front of her as if she had powers as well. I know for a fact she did not have powers, due to her not wearing gloves at all. We 'protected' the Duke, as she insisted that she was normal, when she decided that she was going to look for her sister. I guess her sister had run away, but I'm not sure how, there's only one land exit."

Uncle Jer then cut me off, once more. "The Queen has ice powers? How is that even possible? That is so far-fetched, that even I can't believe ya." Norma looked at my face, and then back at Uncle Jer. "I think he's telling the truth, honestly." I nodded, and then cleared my throat. She smiled, nodded, and then leaned back again. Rejnar, again, was totally immersed into my story. "Wow, I would have never thought that she would have ice powers. I thought it was going to be a sword, or maybe a bow." I chuckled, and then continued on with my story.

"Most of what happened after that was uneventful, until Princess Anna's horse came back from the mountain, all riled up. We were sure something happened to her, so we all went up the mountain to find the Queen. The Duke told Sideburns and I, that if we found the Queen, we must eliminate her. I considered protesting, but I decided that my job was more important, as it would keep earning us money to have at home. We rode up the mountain, using one of those shoddy Norwegian horses, when we found this giant ice castle. It was enormous, and it was made entirely of ice. Hans, the young man from the Southern Isles who was left in charge of Arendelle, while Princess Anna was gone, told us all that no harm was to come to the Queen. I didn't want to harm the Queen, but to eliminate her was my order, you know what I mean? We had gotten off our horses when a giant... snowman...? Yes, a giant snowman had formed right in front of us, and was obviously very protective. I loaded my crossbow, and Sideburns loaded his, and we both fired at it, but it did not faze it at all. We were knocked against a giant pile of snow, when we noticed the Queen closing the doors to her palace. Wanting to get this over with, Sideburns and I ran, up the stairs and into the castle. She had ran up even more stairs, so Sideburns and I had to be even more careful not to slip on these stairs. When we got to the top of the castle, the Queen pleaded with us to stop. I don't know why, but adrenaline filled in, and I fired a shot. This shot was really close to her forehead, but she had summoned an ice wall when it was about to hit her, stopping the arrow from hitting her. I ran around, trying to get a better advantage, but the combination of stress, and my mind trying to get me to stop from killing this innocent girl had rendered me unable to shoot accurately. I had finally focused well enough for a good shot, but she knocked the crossbow out of my hands, and then tried pushing me out of the castle with a block of ice. I tried my hardest to resist it, but it was really tough to. On the balcony, I was really close to being pushed off of the ledge, where there were hundred of feet between me and the ground, when I stepped to the side. Soon, the block of ice had just stopped, as the Queen had been convinced not to by the man from the Southern Isles. I'm not sure what happened next, but I heard a giant crash and when I looked in there, the chandelier had fallen, and the Queen was laid out on the floor. I took a second to regain my breath, and then I left for Arendelle immediately."

Rejnar started biting his nails at the story. Norma was confused. "Wait, so even though you didn't want to kill her, you still went after her?" I nodded my head. "Correct, I just needed to get my job done. I'm glad I hadn't gotten her, however. That would have been tough on my mind for weeks." Uncle Jer nodded with a solemn look on his face. "So, I assume ya then came back to Weselton and then decided, 'Oh, I'm going to visit my Uncle Jer,' right?"

"That's not all, Uncle Jer, I'm still not finished." I retorted.


	8. Chapter 7

"We rode down the North Mountain at a swift pace. I thought my rented horse was going to fall down from exhaustion. Thankfully, we all made it down. Hans brought the Queen into the castle's dungeon. The Duke brought me and Sideburns into the dining hall, and started swearing at us about our failure. We hung our heads low about it, and were both sent to the inn. That day, I slept long. I woke up the next day to a warm, summer day. Sideburns and I had no idea what was going on." I chuckled at the wonder that both he and I were feeling at that point.

Rejnar then asked, "So I assume at this point, you guys start sailing back to Weselton?" I nodded.

"Oh yes, but it took a couple of weeks to get the ships fully fixed, and the Duke still had a little bit of business in Arendelle. I had no idea what it was, but after the Queen ordeal, he had just stopped talking to us. When we finally started sailing, I was given the job of the head cook." Norma giggled at this point. "You? Head cook? I can't see it."

"Ah, but it's true, Hon." I smiled warmly at her, and then continued on. "The kitchen was a mess, I cleaned it. Another uncharacteristic thing from me." Norma giggled again. "The men were catching fish at such a fast pace, that it was tough to not cook something. The ship had a storeroom, and there were many containers of salt. We had smothered cod the first day, and then regular fish the next few days. The last day, I cooked the only chicken that was on the ship. The men enjoyed it. However, on about the 8th day, there was a horrible storm." I grimaced, thinking about the men we lost that day.

"Five men, out of a crew of eighteen, were lost that day. I had only spoken to two of them beforehand, but the reactions of the other men... it was horrible. A horrible time, indeed. I remember that one of the first men that had died that day, he was the one who had showed me to the kitchen. He seemed like a nice man, but obviously a little joking against the new guy." Norma patted my leg, as Rejnar and Uncle Jer had a consoling look on their face. Uncle Jer was the first to speak again. "Sorry that happened, Bear. Must have been tough. I mean, I've killed a few guys in my fighting ring, but they were all mean, mean, bastards..." He tried laughing, but he obviously was nervous.

I smiled, and said, "Thank you. It wasn't too taxing on my mind, but it's still difficult. Their screams is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind. The day after that was the day we reached Weselton, however. It was a beautiful day as well, but when night came and we approached the harbor, well, it got harder."

"There were dozens of people, standing at the harbor, throwing garbage at us and calling us names. We were only performing our jobs, but they looked past that obvious fact. I dodged a couple of punches from them, I guess word must have reached Weselton from a lone ranger leaving Arendelle alone. He must have been from Weselton too, but anyways. I ran straight to the house that Norma and I own, and we left almost immediately."

Norma nodded, and recited what I said to her. "He said to me, "Norma, we have to leave to Corona, now. They might murder us if we don't." Now, I might not have gotten that right, but he was really in a hurry. I grabbed Jorge and Belinde, and we all left. We didn't hook up our carriage, and grabbed next to nothing. You know, besides the kids."

Rejnar stood up, "Let's take a break, for a moment! Anybody need some more snaps?" Norma reached her glass out to Rejnar, and Uncle Jer handed his to Rejnar too. He grabbed all three, and brought them all into the kitchen. Uncle Jer questioned, "So, lad, how did the women of Arendelle look? I've been looking for a nice replacement for Aunt Bertha, and Arendelle is one of the few places I haven't scoured."

I looked back at him with my eyebrow raised, and responded, "Uh, well, the Queen and the Princess both looked quite nice, but nothing I would leave Norma over." She smiled, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I continued, "Besides them, there were really none that looked nice." Uncle Jer snapped, and said, "Ah, well. The Danish women are nice, too." Rejnar returned with the drinks on a plate. "Easier than carrying them all!" He exclaimed. He set them down on the table. Everybody else had grabbed one, and took a sip. Rejnar motioned for me to continue, when Belinde started crying. Norma sighed, and then excused herself for a moment.

I followed Norma with my eyes, and then continued on with the story. "Well, the first few towns we visited in Northern Germany were okay. The inns were nice, but most of the time, we were forced out by the owners. I ran into my old friend, Erik, at one of them, but he was unable to prevent the masses from trying to break into our room. He told us the way out, and we got out without a problem. I noticed at the time that my most recognizable trait were my mutton chops. I used one of my crossbow's bolts to shave, until we left for the next town, as it was showing signs of rain. We stopped at the next inn."

Rejnar nodded again, taking little sips of his snaps. Norma returned, with a peaceful look on her face. I said to her, "Do you want me to tell the story of our fight? Or do you think it's not worth it?" The peaceful look disappeared for a second, and then returned as she said, "Oh, it's not worth it."

I nodded, and then continued from that point on. "We left for Corona from that point on, and encountered some very, very mean people. One of them, he was taller than me, pretty stocky, and had a scar over his left eye, seemed to be their leader." Uncle Jer then pointed, and started yelling, "Oh! Oh! I know him! His name is uh, uh, damn, I can't remember it right now. But he's the leader of a giant criminal association, and you should be careful messing with him..." His speech slowed down and quieted as he continued. He then asked, "Uh, you did kill him, right?" I shook my head. Uncle Jer's complexion went tanned to pale in a second. His mouth formed an o shape. "I... uh... continue, please." He stammered.

I did as he requested. "It was a group of five in all. I used my crossbow to incapacitate most of them. Some of them in more painful ways than others. I shot the first one in the leg, he immediately stopped going for me. The next person, I had shot in the arm. He went down quickly, and didn't cause a fight. Another one, I accidentally shot in his nether regions." Rejnar and Uncle Jer visibly cringed at this one. "I yelled out an apology to him, and finally dealt with one who was shooting his crossbow at me. He must have hidden it behind his back, because I wasn't expecting it."

"I shot the crossbow out of his hands, and was the only one I hadn't injured much. All of a sudden, I heard Norma scream, and I... I just lost all control. I ran towards her, and the leader was pulling her hair, threatening her and the children. I will never forget what he said. 'Your children are precious, yes! I think their heads will look great above my fireplace." I... I tried pleading with him, but he just wouldn't stop. I finally ran forward and shot a bolt at his face. Straight, right on the nose. But, the bolt had bounced off. It was the bolt I used earlier to shave... Norma took advantage of the situation, and just started stabbing him. In the shoulder, nowhere vital. She then kicked him in the arse as he crawled away. But... the men I had already shot with my crossbow... they crawled away too, it's just. Oh God, if the mob finds me again, I may have to do this again, and there will be more people... you know what I mean? I just hate the fact that I'm some sort of public enemy number one, especially since Sideburns is probably dead, or might as well be dead. And the fact that a looney killer is still out there..." My voice wavered on the last one, as I had to choke back tears. Norma again patted me on the back, and then we embraced in a hug. I'm pretty sure a few tears fell out of my eyes at the point, but Norma was crying too.

Rejnar offered some kind words, "The fact that you would go that length to save your family is astounding. I respect you, cousin." Soon thereafter, my Uncle stepped up from his seat, and said, "I've got places to be. Bear, thank you for the story. You're welcome to stay." He gave me a rough hug, and then left the house. Norma and I both decided to get some rest, and rest our minds from what had happened before.

Before I passed onto rest, Norma said to me, "Thank you for defending us, Jer. If the big guy comes back for us, I know you can defeat him." I grimaced, as I know the numbers would be greater the next time.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Wolf

I woke up in the guest bedroom, with my back finally feeling better. The bed was as comfortable as can be, and felt much better than the inn beds we had been in. I went over to my coat, which I had set on a chair in the room. I reached into one of the pockets on the coat and grabbed my pocket watch. The time was 6:24. Norma and I must have been exhausted, as we slept for a long time that night. I looked over at the chair next to it and grabbed my pants. As I was putting them on, I remembered that I didn't grab a shirt for the trip, so I was going to have to borrow a shirt from Uncle Jer or go into town and buy a new one. I checked the pocket in my coat for my bag of money. It seemed like there were enough coins in there for a new shirt. I looked over at my coat again. I could trade the coat in for some amount of coins, if possible. I walked by Norma. Her brown hair seemed to glisten in the sunlight from the window of the room. I smiled and stepped out of the bedroom.

Rejnar was sitting on a chair, the same chair he was on the day before. He looked at my chest immediately. "Whoa, cousin. Do you need to borrow a shirt from my father?" I nodded, and he stepped up quickly. He went into the bathroom, closed the door for a second, and returned with a green shirt. "Here you go, Jer. If you need some new clothes, we'll head into town later if you need." He threw the shirt over to me, which I threw on quickly.

I responded, "Thanks, Rejnar. How are you, today?" He smiled and said, "I'm feeling great! A good snaps can pick you up as you read a little bit of the newspaper in the morning, eh?" I looked at the glass on the table, more snaps. I asked him, "Do you have anything else? Milk?" He nodded at me, and pointed me to the kitchen. I switched my gaze over to the kitchen and started walking over to it. I looked over to the square container on the ground, opened it up, and grabbed a jug from the ice inside. The label on it said "Milk". I set it on the table, and looked around in the cabinet for a glass. I grabbed one when I noticed Norma walking out of the bedroom. She had her dress back on and was holding Belinde. She set Belinde on the couch, and told Rejnar to watch her with a hawkseye. He nodded. Norma walked into the kitchen with me, and gave me a peck on the lips. "Good morning, sweetheart. Can you pour me a glass too?" I turned around and grabbed another and set it down. I opened the lid to the jug and poured some milk into each of the glasses, and handed one to Norma. I snapped the lid back on, when Jorge came walking in behind me. "Could you please get me a glass, Pa?"

I nodded, and again grabbed another glass. This time, I poured only a small amount into the glass, and then handed it to Jorge. I snapped the lid back on once again, and set it inside of the ice container. I grabbed the glass I had, and sat down on the loveseat with Norma. She was letting Belinde walk around a bit. Whenever Belinde came over to her, she would give Belinde a drink of the milk. I grinned at this. Rejnar then placed the newspaper on the table. "Well, I've gotta wake up my father. Don't want him sleeping too long." He stepped up from his chair and went over to a door on the other side of the room. He knocked, and then walked in.

Norma then asked me, "Hey, Jer. It seems peaceful here, but if things were to, so to speak, get worse, where would we go?" I set down my milk on the table, and then looked over at me. "Norma, you know, I've been thinking. I think I want to go on back to Denmark, back to my hometown of Blavand." She sighed. "But then we'd have to go all the way back through Weselton again, and you know how they feel about you there." I shrugged and said, "They won't recognize me. We're incognito, remember?" She nodded, and I continued. "Well, for what it's worth, I'm going to trade in my coat for some clothes for us. Can't you wait to get out of these ratty old clothes?" She smiled. "I can't! Let's wait for Uncle Jer, eh?" She snuggled next to me as I grabbed the newspaper from the table. The headline said "BANISHED PRINCE - Southern Isles!" and under it was talking about the young prince I had met in Arendelle. I checked it out, and it appeared that he had actually tried murdering the Queen, while I was asleep in the inn. It's funny how things turn out.

Uncle Jer stepped out from his bedroom door with his clothes all ready, and he looked genuinely happy. "So, ya want me to show you around Corona?" I nodded, and then added, "Yeah, and I think I want you to show us to the clothing store." He nodded quickly with a big smile on his face. "Get ready, you four. We're heading out soon."

I stepped back into the bedroom, and grabbed the coat that was thrown over the chair. I won't need this anymore, I thought. I grabbed a bag that was lying around on the floor, threw the coat in there, and we left soon afterwards. We walked down to the clothing store next door to Mr. Raun's barber shop. I sold the coat for 150 coins, which is more than I was expecting. Norma bought a new dress, it was in a dark blue color, and looked cute on her. She also bought some clothes for Belinde and Jorge. After I sold the coat, I bought a new white shirt, and some new pants for me to wear.

As we were leaving in our new clothes, Uncle Jer hurried home, as he was meeting people there, I guess. Rejnar offered to show us around Corona more. We took him up on the offer. We had went to a beautiful place to eat breakfast. Norma and I decided to share a meal of pancakes and sausage, while Jorge had just one sausage. Norma fed Belinde some of the pancakes, and Rejnar decided to get the full sausage meal. As we ate, Norma glanced up to me with her beautiful blue eyes. "We'll stay for a few more days, okay hon?" I nodded, and we finished up breakfast. As we left, Rejnar showed us to the barber, where he said that I should go for a checkup on my mustache. We laughed, and then moseyed on home.

We walked in through the door, with me in front, and then caught a glimpse of who was sitting at the chair with Uncle Jer. It was the man who had tried to rob us. The same man with the scar over his eye. I heard Uncle Jer saying, "Eh, Wolfy, you know, that broken nose is gonna stay. Just look at mine." Uncle Jer looked over at me, and then made hand motions for me to leave. I stayed for a second, and then told Norma and the kids to leave. Norma, Belinde, and Jorge all left for the city, and Rejnar stayed behind my back.

I walked in, and the man stood up. "Ehhh, well, if it isn't Fancyman. You know, I heard that you were here." I gulped for a second, and nodded. He turned to Uncle Jer and asked, "Who's this guy to ya, is he your manager or something?" Uncle Jer then replied, "Well, Wolfy, you know, he's my nephew." He returned his gaze to me. "Ohhh, Fancyman is Beardog's nephew, eh? Well, you know what you did to me? You broke my nose, and your wife humiliated me in front of my men. So if you don't mind..." He pulled out his knife again. "Why don't you come with me, into the kitchen, eh?" I shook my head. "Ohh, Fancyman is going to refuse, eh? Listen here. You don't know who I control. I even have connections to your uncle. So, without further ado, you, are coming with me." He then took the time to poke me in the shoulder with the knife. I then nodded, and followed him into the kitchen. I looked back at my Uncle Jer. He shrugged. Rejnar ran back out of the door.

"Well, Fancyman, now that I have you here..." He held the knife to my throat. "Why don't we do a bit of... negotiating?"


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Negotiation

The knife being held close to my throat had caused me to breathe faster. I was quite obviously getting nervous. I asked him, as my voice trembled, "Why are you here?" He chuckled, "Oh, boyo, you know why I'm here. But why I'm at your uncle's house, you mean?" I nodded. He continued. "Your uncle and I go way back. Yaknow, he used to be a fighter. I did too. We always brought in the big bucks. When I saw you that first time, I thought about the resemblance to him you have. So, I crawled back with all of my men, all of us hurting in some ways. I'm pretty sure you broke my nose, but it's nothing different for me here. So, now I assume you're gonna ask why I'm holding this knife to your throat, eh?" I nodded again.

"Well, once we got back to Corona, the other guys started taking the piss out of me. Yaknow, making fun of me for being manhandled by a woman. Now, I know your agenda is to neutralize, not kill, but I think you would have been better off killing me at that point. Since I saw your family with you as you were riding up here, I assume they're here with you. Well, where are they, eh?" I kept my mouth shut. He started poking my shoulder again. "Well, eh? You know, this knife is pretty sharp." He diverted his attention for a second, looking out the window, but from my vantage point, there was nothing outside. He chuckled, and looked back at me. "Ah, might as well tell you who I am. I'm Wolfgang Frei, also known as the Wolf. I've been out of contact with your uncle for years, but I remembered him. What you saw here was a reunion of sorts."

All of a sudden, the door kicked open, and we heard footsteps at a fast pace. Rejnar was running in with an axe from outside. However, the Wolf kept his gaze on me, with a sinister smile. I silently wondered what was going on, when Rejnar reached a few footsteps behind the Wolf. In a sudden movement, the Wolf ducked the shot, which I narrowly avoided on my own, and stabbed Rejnar right in the stomach. As Rejnar slumped to the ground, the Wolf turned back to me. "See why they call me the Wolf?" Uncle Jer stepped out of a room that he must have entered as Wolfgang and I were talking, and checked the noise. Rejnar crawled over to the wall, and sat against it. The wound was producing a large amount of blood. My uncle took one look at Rejnar, took a glance at the knife Wolfgang was holding, and immediately grabbed him from the back, and slugged him in the face. The Wolf dropped the knife, which slid along the floor, and returned the slug. I ran past the two. Jer seemed to be getting a grasp on the Wolf's throat, trying to choke him, but the Wolf was not having any of it. I opened the door to the guest bedroom, looking for my bag containing my crossbow and my bolts. I grabbed the crossbow, already loaded with a bolt. I grabbed my bag as well, and also made sure to reach into Norma's bag for the knife she had stolen from the Wolf.

I ran back into the kitchen, both were slugging it out, both bleeding heavily from the nose. I aimed very carefully, and took a shot. As the Wolf took a shot, it stabbed his forearm, and was quite obviously sticking out. This allowed Uncle Jer to throw a powerful punch, and then grasp his throat. Uncle Jer threw him against the wall, and then asked, "Hey, Jer, hand me a knife." I reached into my bag, and handed him the knife. He held one arm against the Wolf's throat, and said to him, "Say your last words, Wolfy." Uncle Jer let up for a second, and the Wolf said, "Think about this before you kill me. I am connected to the King of Corona. You know you can't kill me without consequences." As the Wolf was talking, I reached over for the blood splattered knife on the ground. I grabbed it, looked at Rejnar, he was barely concious. He nodded at me, with a sneer on his face. Uncle Jer held the knife close to the Wolf's face. Looking at the knife, I tapped on Uncle Jer's shoulder, handed him the other knife, which he held in the same hand as the other knife, and turned away. As much as I seem violent, I still can't bear to see anyone die. I walked over to Rejnar, and tried covering the wound with him. As I was helping Rej out, I heard a scream from the Wolf, and then a thump on the ground.

Uncle Jer then ran over to Rejnar, and asked him a few questions. "I've seen a couple of stab wounds. Uh, this ain't unusual..." He was stumbling over his words, and obviously very nervous. "Uh, Jer, go into the bathroom, there should be some towels in there." As I left the room, Rej started to cough, heavily. I rushed to the bathroom and grabbed a few towels from the bar behind the door. I hurried back to the kitchen, and threw the towels to my uncle. "Jer, go back and tell Norma and the kids what has happened. I know how to deal with this." I started to protest, but was interrupted with a, "Just go! Now!" I sped out of the front door, and sprinted to Norma and the kids, who were at the barber's place. Norma had gotten a haircut for Belinde, which she had been meaning to do for awhile. I stepped in, and then Mr. Raun noticed me. "Ah, it's you! Need touching up on your mustache?" I shook my head, and then grabbed Norma. Norma then said, "Watch the kids for a second, Mr. Raun!" He nodded with a large smile as we stepped outside.

"Jer, what's wrong? Did something go down between you and the big bad wolf?" How coincidential it is that she said that. I then explained to her, in very short terms, "Rejnar was stabbed, the Wolf is dead." She gasped, and then immediately went inside the barber's with the kids again. I rushed back to the house, and Rejnar was still propped up against the wall, as Uncle Jer was moving the corpse of the Wolf. "Help me get this out of here." I grabbed the Wolf's legs. He was a heavy man. Uncle Jer directed me to the backyard of the house. We took a break for a second, and then continued, bringing his body to a lake found behind the house. Beautiful view, but wasn't the best when you're carrying a body over there. He and I threw him into the water, regained our bearings, and walked back to the house.

Norma and the kids were waiting in front. I greeted them, as Uncle Jer wearily walked into the house. I whispered to Norma, "Get your things ready, we're leaving tomorrow." I walked inside, and slowly stepped over to the kitchen. I crouched down next to Rejnar, and asked him, "How are you feeling?" He opened his mouth, coughed, and then responded, "I feel like trash, cousin. I..." Tears started to gather up in his eyes. "I... don't think I'm going to..." He coughed again, "I don't think I'm going to make it, cousin..." As tears started to well up in my eyes as well, I shook my head. "You're going to, when things look bleak, look on the bright side." Uncle Jer stepped back out of the bathroom, and then walked over to Rejnar. "Son, I... don't say this to you often enough..." He was obviously disheveled. "Son, I love you... with all of my heart. You are the reason I get up every morning. You know that..." Rejnar nodded, and then they embraced. "Father... I love you too..." Uncle Jer wiped the tears away from his eyes. Rejnar then looked over at me. "Cousin..." He coughed once more. "Take care of Norma and your children. The amount of love you have for them is... amazing." Uncle Jer hugged Rejnar again. "Dad... take care of yourself, okay?"

Uncle Jer nodded. Rejnar laid his head on Uncle Jer's leg, and finally closed his eyes. "I'll say hi to ma for you, father..." And with that, he passed on.

Immediately, Uncle Jer started sobbing. "Son... no!" He sobbed and screamed "No!" out multiple times, and sat there, holding Rejnar on his lap. I stood up and walked over to Norma. Norma looked at me in the eye. I shook my head, and then, I embraced her. I cried into her shoulder, as she patted my head. "There, there..." She hugged me as I was crying. Rejnar was the only one who was not involved with the Wolf. All of us had encountered him before, except for him. And he tried to save me.

As I was crying into Norma's shoulder, I thought about all of the fun times we had had as children. One day, when we had both lived in Denmark, we were running around the docks, playing tag. As I was running around with him, I had accidentally bumped into a stranger. Instead of getting angry at me, the stranger decided to play along, and he tagged Rejnar. We spent hours playing tag that day, with the stranger. Another time, we were trying to convince his mother to get a pet for him, and she simply had no idea what she would get him. As we were walking around our neighborhood, a dog ran up to us, and sat in front of Rejnar. Talk about luck. The times ended when he, Uncle Jer, and Aunt Bertha had moved here to Corona. We visited every year, but we didn't have as fun of times as we did in Blavand.

Uncle Jer walked in, and asked to speak to me. Trying to keep up his best stoic face, even though it was obvious he was very depressed. "Nephew, before you leave, I just want you to do one thing. I had a dream last night. It was of Blavand, the smells. I want you to go up there, and see your father. Last time he came down here, he missed you terribly, and was wanting you to visit. Could you just, visit him?" I nodded, and then talked to him a little bit more about how Norma and I were planning to go up there. We stood for a second, and then we embraced as well. "I love you, nephew." I reciprocated the feelings. "If you are going to leave, well, goodbye then. It's too dangerous here in Corona for you anyways. But I only have one question." I asked, "What?"

He responded with his question. "Can you take me with you?"


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Preparations

"Sure. We'll be leaving tomorrow. Maybe in the morning, but the evening is fine too." I replied. He nodded, and gave me another hug. He stumbled over to his bedroom, looked back at the empty spot where Rejnar had been laid before, and sighed as he walked in. Uncle Jer must have moved his body, or something, as Rejnar's limp body was not there. This had been the first time Uncle Jer must have cleaned in a long time as well, as there was not a stain of blood left over. As I began to close the door, Uncle Jer stepped back out of his bedroom to say, "Hey, you can go poking around in Rejnar's bedroom if you want. You're the only person who I'd want to give his stuff to, and he's..." He caught his breath; he was close to crying again. "He's not going to use it. He may have something in there that you might need."

I nodded, and responded, "I'll check it out in the morning," and closed the bedroom door. Norma was laying in the bed already, her dress laying over the chair closeby. She was reading a book from the table next to the bed, with a lantern set at the place the book had used to be. I sighed and sat down on the other side. As I did, she patted me on the back. "The kids are laid down in Rejnar's room. I had no idea that was Rejnar's room, the fact he gave it to the children is just, I'm glad." I nodded, and had gotten ready for bed. "Listen, Jer, I'm sorry about what happened. If you're wondering why I'm not that affected, it's because I'm simply, not affected by death much. You remember when I told you that my mother died when I was about 7, yes?" I nodded.

"Well, I hadn't been affected much by it. She was a lovely woman, yes, but... I don't know. It's hard to explain." I reached around her, and grabbed her shoulder. "I understand, Norma. I still love you very much. It's just, tough on me. I've always been affected by death, even if it was somebody who had been opposing me. You know how I felt when I assisted Uncle Jer with that one vandal, The Wolf?" She shook her head, "Can't say that I do." I let my feelings out, "I felt like, honestly, garbage. Like what the others were calling me at the pier at Weselton. At the time, I didn't feel like one, I had just been doing my orders, you know? But now, I feel, 'Well, maybe I am garbage.' It's an awful feeling, and I wish that I hadn't brought you guys out here to witness Rej's death, or at least the outcome of it."

I shook my head, the tears were coming back. Norma set her hand on my leg. "Honey, don't feel like that. I know you honestly don't like doing the things that you have done over the past few weeks, but it's kept me and the children safe. And honestly, if Rejnar hadn't tried to save you like that, what would have happened to us? Celebrate his life, instead of crying over the loss. He was a nice man, from what I could tell. The balding hit him a little early I could tell. He probably wanted you to be happy about his life, not to be upset about his death. I know I would want that." As she spoke to me about this, I was nodding. She had a good point.

Norma then set the book down on the table beside her. "Eh, that book wasn't the best written. Sort of cheesy, if you ask me." She then blew out the lantern. "Well, I'm going to bed, unless you have anything else you want to talk about." She said as she pulled the covers over her shoulders. I replied, "I think it'd just be better for me to get to bed as well." I did the same, and then gave her a hug as a thank you. Then, I drifted off to sleep.

That night, I dreamed many strange things. However, one of my dreams was of a memory I had, as a young teenager, with Rejnar. He and I were beachcombing, searching for small trinkets to sell later. We were saving up to buy... I can't remember, actually. It was something we were both interested in, however. Anyways, we were combing the beach, when I spotted something shining in the water. I ran over, and picked up a shortsword. It was incredibly surprising. I gave it to Rejnar later, after trying to use it unsuccessfully against a bag filled with wheat. I always was better with ranged weaponry.

In the morning, I woke up to Norma getting dressed. She saw me open my eyes, and with a smile on her face, told me, "Well, well, good morning handsome." I sat up slowly. Norma had gotten the dress back on, and came over to hand me my clothing. "Here, you'll probably need these today." I nodded, grabbed the clothes, and got up at a snail's pace. I had gotten dressed in a larger amount of time than usual, and walked out of the room. Norma was sitting at the chair again, with a glass of milk. Jorge and Belinde were next to her, sneaking sips every now and then. She pretended not to notice, but I'm sure she was aware. That woman is a beautiful human. I decided to step into Rejnar's room, to take Uncle Jer up on his offer.

Once I stepped in, I noticed how orderly it was. The closet was arranged by clothing type, coats and jackets, shirts, pants. It impressed me. However, I tried searching for a secret compartment in the closet. Ours back in Weselton did, and we stored a few family pictures there, as well as a letter saying who we were. God, Weselton. We left so many things there. We can make a visit again to our house, assuming it hasn't been ransacked.

I searched for a lever inside of the closet, somewhere that could open a compartment. I traced the floor, and found one on the side. I pulled it, and couldn't believe my eyes.

It was a sword. A suspiciously similar sword. I reached for the handle, and pulled it out of it's sheath. Hmm... this sword... It seems like the same one I had given him as a teenager, but the one I had given him did not have a sheath. I set it back into the sheath, and set it down on the floor. I got back onto my knees, and found a note. It read: "TO-DO: Buy sheath. Give sword to Jer when he visits next." The "Buy sheath" part was crossed out. I noticed what had happened. Rej had saved the sword to give to me at a later time. I looped it to my belt, and wiped the tears that have been developing in my eye away.

The rest of the things in his room weren't as impactful as that, but I'm sure I could make use of a backpack I had found in his closet. I stored a few clothing items in there. I spotted some change in the room, and decided to ask Uncle Jer about it, who said that it was okay to take. I took the change, and stored it in my moneybag. I then stored the moneybag in my newly obtained backpack. Thanks to Uncle Jer, we were all equipped with new backpacks to store things in, except for the children.

Uncle Jer and I helped sell all of the furniture to make some extra coin, packed up to leave, and left the house. Norma gave me a peck on the cheek as we left. I got on Skonhed, Norma on Dejilig, and Uncle Jer and the kids on his own horse. We left in the early evening.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: To Blavand

We rode out of Corona at a swift rate. We passed by one of the city's guards, who nodded to Uncle Jer as he left. We rode for a little bit, when we came to a fork in the road. "Which way did we come from, dear?" Norma asked me. I pointed towards the right side, as I remembered on the way here, we had to turn slightly. Plus, there was a rock with a distinct moss pattern that I recognized on the way to Corona, and it was on the right side, so we rode on that way.

Uncle Jer asked to stop at one point on the journey back. We did indeed stop for him, and he went to the side of the road. "I'm sorry, I had just gotten a random feeling of illness." He said. All of a sudden, I turned my back, and heard vomiting in a violent way. Obviously, he had been drinking heavily for awhile, but it never seemed to affect him in this way. It also might be the nerves from leaving his son behind, no matter if he's alive or not. I jumped back on my horse, he got back on his, thanked us, and we continued on.

We drifted from town to town. We made it to Raisdorf, and saw the same smiling man at the counter as before. "Hey, hey, I see you still have that mustache!" He yelled over to me. Uncle Jer walked up to him, and handed him 50 coins. "2 rooms, please." The smiling man took the coin, and then looked at Uncle Jer a little closer. "Well, well, if it isn't the Beardog! I've been wondering what's happened to you since you dropped out of the brackets. How are you doing, mate?" He was smiling, I'm pretty sure Uncle Jer was his childhood hero. "You know, take the coin back, the rooms are free!" Norma seemed surprised by this man's generosity.

Uncle Jer said to Norma and I, "Listen, I'll take the kids, they'll be fine with me. You guys have some alone time together. I know you need it." I nodded, and then looked at Norma. She looked back at me, and smiled. We walked up the steps, Norma and I taking a separate room from the one we had before. I sat down on a chair in the room, and grabbed a book from the little bookshelf that the room had had. I read the title, "Arendellian Delights: A Cookbook". I scoffed. A cookbook would be good if I had an actual place to cook.

Norma took the book out of my hands. "Arendellian Delights: A Cookbook? Jer, are you going to take over cooking duties?" She giggled, and placed the book down. Norma sat down on the chair next to me. "So, what are we planning next? Are we going straight to Denmark?" I shook my head. "Honestly, I think we should visit Weselton, first. Gather up what is there, assuming nobody picked it apart already." She nodded. "But, what of the crazy people wanting to kill you, and probably us as well?" I leaned over. "Hmm... well, maybe I will stop in Weselton, gather up a lot of our belongings in a knapsack, and then bring it back as you, Uncle Jer, and the kids continue on. Does that sound like a good plan?" She thought about it for a second, and then started to speak. "Well, I honestly think... wait, hold on a second." She took off her shoe, reached behind me, and smashed a spider on the wall. She then wiped the shoe off on a rug inside of our room. "Okay, where was I?" I helped her remember. "Oh, right. Well, I honestly think that you and Uncle Jer should go, as we need someone to do some heavy lifting, if we're grabbing some of our belongings."

I nodded, and then added, "Well, what do you think we should grab?" She pulled a quill pen off of the table, dipped the tip inside of ink, and then pointed it at me. "We are going to make a list! Well, by we, I mean me, because we both know you have no idea what we should grab." I chuckled as she did, and then grabbed a piece of paper off of the bookshelf for her. "Thanks, sweetie. Why don't you go mingle? Get some beer, or something." I shook my head. "You know I don't drink, but I might go talk with some people." As I left the room, Norma yelled out to me, "Don't forget about me, I'm your wife!" I chuckled.

I stepped down the stairs, and the grinning man at the counter noticed me. "Oh, you're coming back down! Leaving already?" I shook my head. "No, I just want to speak for a little bit." At this point, I noticed a man playing piano. It was a haunting song, pretty slow, off-key, but it still sounded good to my ear. The man at the counter yelled over to this man, "Hey, Timo, the thing's getting out of key again!" The man at the piano sighed, pushed the chair back, and reached into the piano to try and get it back into key.

"What song is he playing, over there?" The man at the counter, wiping a mug off, shrugged. "Says it's self composed, no idea what he calls it." I turned to talk to the man, when the man at the counter said, "Hey, wait, I need to speak with you." I turned back around, and asked, "What do you need to speak with me about?" He then leaned in close to me, "Is that your father, the Beardog? You two barely look alike!" I shook my head, once again. "No, he's my uncle. We're coming back from Corona, we recently lost someone close to us, so we're riding up to Denmark to tell my actual father." He nodded, and seemed pleased. He then said, "Go on." and pointed towards the other man, Timo.

I stepped towards Timo, who was still tuning the piano, and said, "Hello, sir." He jumped, turned around, and then held his chest. "Jesus, don't scare me like that." I apologized, and then asked, "What's your name?" The man stepped down, he seemed no older than 20. "It's Timo, I'm the owner's kid." I nodded, and then queried, "What's that song you were playing? What do you call it?" Timo then stumbled over his words, and then said, "Uh, I'm not sure, uh... how about... eh... no..." He grabbed his chin, he was obviously having a hard time.

I mulled it over, and then gave him a good name, or at least in my opinion. "How about 'Ode to Rejnar'? Named after... the German Duchy, Duke Rejnar the 2nd?" I came up with a lie that quickly, hopefully this kid didn't know his history. Timo thought for a second, and then agreed. "Yeah, that's pretty good! Rolls off the tongue!" He then stepped back up onto the piano platform, and continued tuning the piano. "Thank you, sir! What's your name?" I told him, "You can just call me Jer." He nodded, and then I stepped back to go back upstairs.

I marched up the stairs, and took a detour to Uncle Jer's room. I opened the doors, and there was Uncle Jer, wrestling around with the kids, as Belinde was laughing. Uncle Jer looked at me, smiled, and then continued on with the kids. I grinned, closed the door, and then went to the room with Norma. As I stepped in, Norma was still at work on the list. "Still working, eh?" She jumped, and then giggled. "Back already, eh?" I nodded. "What do you have down, then?" She put the pen down, and then picked up the list. "Well, it's obviously a work in progress, but here you go."

I grabbed it from her, and read over the list. At the top of the list was, "Belinde's blankie". I realized, I forgot to get her blanket when we left. Hopefully, it's still there. I read the next item, "Jorge's fighting doll". Hmm, I remember that. It wasn't really a doll, more of a wooden statue with moveable parts. I moved onto the next thing. "Family pictures." We waited awhile to get those things, and they were expensive too. We might want those. "My unmentionables" Yikes. Next one. "Clothing." That one's a given, we need to change out of these clothes soon. "More bolts for Jer's crossbow." I read this one, and then asked her, "Are you sure I need more bolts? I already have a lot in my bag." I patted the bag placed on my leg. She shrugged, "Just in case."

I nodded, and went down the list. I agreed with all of them, and we must grab them when we reach Weselton. I set the list down, and told Norma, "As you're going to read, I'm just going to go to bed." She nodded, and then wished me, "Good night, sweetie!" with a large smooch.

As I slept, I dreamt. Vividly.

It started out with me inside of a lush field of grass. It was a beautiful field. I walked through it a little bit, picking up flowers along the way, for some reason. I looked off into the distance, and spotted my father. I started running towards him, but suddenly, he disappeared. I looked around, looking for him, but all I could find was the field.

All of a sudden, I heard a piano playing. I looked behind me, and saw a beautiful white piano, standing there. It was playing the tune from earlier, Ode to Rejnar, as he called it. Soon into the song, it got a little off key, so I decided to go around to check who was playing it.

As I got closer, the song had gotten more and more off key, and when I finally approached the man who was playing the piano, it was... the Wolf. He blew on his fingers, and said, "I like to call this, Ode to the Wolf." Afterwards, he started guffawing. I backed away, but he pulled out two very large knifes. He was just about to stab me, when I hit a wall. I turned around, and on it were the heads of Norma, Belinde, and Jorge. I shrieked myself awake soon after, waking up Norma. After that, however, I fell back asleep.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: To Blavand Part 2

After the awful night had passed, and I woke back up in the morning, I sat up and wiped sweat off of my forehead. I took a look at the sweat on my fingers, and then thought. That dream I had last night, I could still remember it fully. It's strange, usually I can't remember my dreams, except for the one about my father about a week ago.

Norma was already up out of bed, casually reading a different book from the shelf. This one was a little bit thicker, and on the cover, it said, "Duchy of Weselton: A Story of Greed". She looked up at me, and then said, "Oh, you're finally awake! Are you alright?" I nodded, and then grabbed my pants. She turned another page, and read some more as I slipped on the pants. As I finally put on my shirt, she came over and hugged me. "Oh, Jer, I was worried about you last night. I understand, you're having bad dreams." I nodded, and gave her a smooch on the cheek. She giggled, and then noted, "I didn't know that Duke Bernat had stolen riches from the King of the Southern Isles before, did you?" I shook my head, I wasn't much of a talker in the morning. She grabbed the book again, and then traced a few lines that explained it with her finger. As I read, she went into the bathroom.

It was mighty interesting, but I placed the book down, on the page she was on, mind you, and then went to grab my bag. She stepped out of the bathroom, wiping her hands together. "The cloths aren't that good here, they barely dried my hands at all." She then wiped her hands on the couch. I laughed, and then placed the strap of the bag over my shoulder. She noticed me doing this, and then asked, "We're leaving soon?" I nodded. "Yeah, want to leave bright and early, you know?" She agreed, and then grabbed the book. "I think I'll buy this book from the man. I don't think he will miss it." She went over to her own bag, and placed the book inside of it.

We left the room, making it look tidy and clean, and then visited Uncle Jer's room. We stepped in, Uncle Jer was also reading, as the kids were sleeping. He looked up at us, looked at our clothing, and then immediately got ready. He set the book down on the table, got his shirt back on, and then woke the kids up. They were excited to be leaving again, and we all cleaned the room up. We all left the room, then, and walked down the stairs. The man at the counter noticed us leaving, and then went up to shake Uncle Jer's hand. He then shook my hand, and told me, "Thank you for coming up with a name for the song my son made. He really appreciates it." I nodded, and then Norma stepped up to him.

"Hello, sir. My name is Norma Thuesen Krogh, and I would like to buy this book." She reached out of her bag, and placed "Duchy of Weselton: A Story of Greed" onto the counter. He took one look at it, and then told her, "It's yours." She was surprised, "I don't have to haggle?" He shook his head. "No, I won't miss it. Your family deserves it anyways." He smiled, and then waved to us. I looked over to his son, Timo, and he had a large grin on his face too. He waved to me, and I waved back. As we left, Timo played Ode to Rejnar.

We each got on our respective horses, and left to go to Weselton. I described to Uncle Jer our plans. "Norma, you, and the kids will ride around Weselton to Blavand, I will go into Weselton, and get our belongings. I will catch up to you in Denmark, at some point. I will not sleep until I find you. Do you understand?" He nodded. "I will protect your family with my life, Nephew. It's the least I could do."

We rode on to Blavand at a swift rate. We were around the outskirts of Gereby when we noticed something dangerous. Storm clouds. We pulled over to the side of the road, and I calculated the distance. "The storm clouds are coming in quick, and it'll be storming by the time we get anywhere close to Gereby." Norma shrugged. "Should we look for a cave somewhere?" I nodded, and we all set in search for one. As soon as the first lightning had hit, we had already found an area to rest in, and we tried waiting it out. Uncle Jer found a nice immobile rock and tied the horses around it.

I checked my stopwatch. It was around 18:30, and the storm was threatening. We were shivering, it was a very cool storm. Soon, Uncle Jer asked, "Should we try to start a fire? I have some matches in my pocket." We nodded, and then collected up spare sticks and logs that were laying in the cave. Uncle Jer lit the fire, and we huddled around it for the rest of the night. We had conversations about what was going to happen in the future, and Uncle Jer also told funny stories from his fighting days. Soon, the storm stopped, and Uncle Jer introduced the question, "Should we stay here and sleep, or ride into Gereby and try to sleep in their inn?" I thought about it. Gereby, the owner knew us at that point. We had already visited the inn, but we were ousted. I told him, "I think we should stay here. The man running the inn in Gereby doesn't really like us." Uncle Jer nodded, and then threw his knapsack on the ground. "I have mostly clothes in here, if the kids want to usethese as pillows, they could." They jumped at the offer, and used it along with Uncle Jer.

After a little bit of talking, Norma then asked if she could use me as a pillow. I thought a bit, and then nodded. I laid down on the ground, allowing her to lay her head on my stomach. Thatnight, it was hard getting to sleep. The floor was hard, and unforgiving. Soon, the fire went out, and I had no choice but to close my eyes.

I woke up to everybody yelling me awake. When I finally did, they all cheered. After that, we got on the horses, and rode on to Weselton. The sun was bright, and the birds chirped with glee. It was a beautiful day. I guess the best days are the ones after the worst storms.

As we passed through Gereby, I told Uncle Jer, Norma, and the kids to ride on. I needed to stop to get some business taken care of. Uncle Jer handed me a few extra knapsacks, Norma and the children gave me smooches, and then rode on. I hitched Skonhed up to a post, petted her head, and then walked into a barber's place. He greeted me with a smile, and then asked what I needed. "Could you shave my beard, please?" It had grown a lot since the last time I had it touched up. He nodded, and then grabbed a razor off of the table. "I will use shampoo, that is good, ja?" I nodded, and within a few minutes, I went from having a full beard to a babyface. He then asked if there was anything else I needed. I shook my head, thanked him, and then grabbed Skonhed to leave again. As I looked into a window, I barely recognized myself. Hopefully, the people of Weselton will not recognize me.

I made another stop, to a book store on the street. I stepped inside, and studied a few books on the shelves. "Hmm, do you have any historical books?" The man at the store's counter nodded, and showed me to the history section. I grabbed a few books that I thought would interest Norma, and placed them in my knapsack. I then walked over to the clothes store right next to it, grabbed a nice dress, a few shirts, some new trousers, a beautiful skirt, and a few hats for the family. I bought them, and then placed the clothing, again, in my knapsack. I'm glad the knapsacks were large, they will be helpful when I retrieve our items from Weselton.

And with that, I rode on to Weselton, ready to fight for whatever is ours.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Weselton and Flensburg

Skonhed and I rode down to Weselton, making good time. We made it to Weselton from Gereby as the sun was setting. When I arrived, I was stopped at the gate. "HALT!" I stopped quickly. "Whoa, there." I yelled to my horse, in a higher pitch than I usually talk. "Weselton's on high security. Who are you?" For a moment, I considered telling him my real name, but then I quickly came up with a different name. "I am returning to Weselton from the Netherlands! I am Klaus Dominik Frei, and I request to get through." I couldn't believe how my voice was sounding. Very different from usual.

"Indeed, sire! You may proceed!" He opened up the gates, and I rode through with Skonhed. I gallopped throughout town, getting to our house. When I found the house, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was just like it was, beautiful and pristine. I hitched Skonhed to the hitching post outside of the house, and walked inside.

I knew what I was there for. I reached into my pocket, and recieved the paper that Norma had given to me. "Belinde's blankie". Thankfully, the blanket was right where she usually kept it, on her bed. I grabbed it, and placed it into one of the knapsacks. Next on the list, "Jorge's Fighting Doll". Yes, I remember where he kept this one. I reached into a chest by his bed, and placed it next to the blanket in the knapsack. The next object on the list, "Family Pictures", was easy to find. I reached into our secret compartment, and placed it into the same knapsack. I also left the letter, explaining who we were.

I read down the list a little more, "My (Norma's) unmentionables". I stood up, and looked for the box that said, "Unmentionables." Norma seemed to love that word. When I found the box, I grabbed the knapsack I was using, and poured the contents into it. I closed the knapsack, it has reached the capacity, and threw it around my back. I then looked for the clothes, as I knew it was on the list, and threw them in another knapsack. I filled one of them, and halfway filled another. I threw the next one around my back, and then grabbed my secret bolt supply, and threw them in the last knapsack. The list was complete, but I wanted to grab one more thing.

I felt the sword at my belt, it felt right. It was Rejnar's, and I knew I didn't want to lose it. I then grabbed Norma's jewelry box. I knew that Norma would appreciate this. Now, I had 4 knapsacks around my back, which was pretty heavy, and ready to go on. First, however, I grabbed the largest knapsack there was, and I threw three of the knapsacks in there. I turned around, struggling to carry the knapsacks, when I was face to face with my former neighbor, holding a knife to my face. "Who are you, and why are you here?" I struggled to keep a straight and good face on, when I responded. "I'm Brynjar Krogh, I'm the owner of this house's cousin, he wanted me to grab a few things for him."

My neighbor, Anika, was 5'6" and was very small. Once she heard the name Krogh, she knew I wasn't a criminal. Her face immediately lightened up, and she set the knife down. "Oh, a relative of Jeronimus and the family, eh? Well, I guess it's okay. I heard he was the one who tried to kill the Queen, is that true?" I, again, got nervous, and then replied, "Oh, he uh, was only being loyal to the Duke, he told him to kill the Queen. Otherwise, he wouldn't have tried killing her, and he even regrets it." Anika smiled at this. "Jer, I knew it was you, quit the act."

I was surprised. "How did you know?" She replied while giggling, "All of your neighbors know that it was the Duke's fault now." I was surprised at this information. "You defending yourself is what gave it away." I nodded. "You're here now, anyways. Are you going to stay?" I shook my head. "We're moving up to Denmark. My home country. Nice place called Blavand." She nodded. "Will you return again?" I shook my head once again. "Well, okay. I'll let them know that the building is up for sale. Be careful, in town, though. A lot of people still are angry at you two, even though it's been announced that the ex-Duke was the one who caused it. I don't want you to die." I nodded, and then hugged her. "Thank you for watching my house, I appreciate it."

She nodded, and said, "Anything for Norma and the kids. And you, I guess." We laughed, and then I got on Skonhed to ride away. I waved to her, and she waved back. That was the last I'll ever see Anika, I thought, but then again, the town we have here isn't the best to live in anyways. Better to be in Blavand with my father. I considered stopping and seeing Sideburns, but I decided against it. I did, however, stop at one of the local shops, that had giant knapsacks, bought one, and stored the rest of the knapsacks inside of that one. I then got back on Skonhed, and started to ride out. The guard at the gates started to open them, but then looked a little closer at my face. "Are you... Jeronimus Krogh?" I shook my head. "You're the fifth person to tell me that, but I need to get through." He nodded, and then opened the gates.

I rode a bit, knowing the country limits were a bit outside of Weselton. I thought about what I said to my family, that I wouldn't sleep until I found them. I'm sure they would be sleeping inside of an inn somewhere, I didn't bring sleeping bags. I remember a store that sells them in Blavand, we wouldn't need to buy any until then. Skonhed and I galloped along, until we came to the first city inside of the country of Denmark, Flensburg. I stopped at the inn, knowing that my family must have passed through here. I went up to the man. "Did you encounter a large man, a woman, and two kids?" The man at the counter replied, "Yes, they came in, but they got angry at my implication that they were married, so they decided to go to a different inn, nearby." I nodded, thanked him, and decided to search for the other inn. I jumped on Skonhed, and rode over to the Cranberry Inn. I scoffed, thinking, "What an original name." I stepped inside, and stepped up to the woman at the counter. "Hello, miss, did you encounter a large man, a small woman, and two children in here today?" She nodded. "Yes, they decided to take a room, it's right on upstairs." She pointed to the stairs, and let me go on up. I thanked her, and decided to take the offer.

As I was upstairs, there were 4 doors. "Which door?" She replied, "The one that says 4". I nodded, and stepped into said door. When I stepped in, I was immediately tackle hugged by my two children. I patted Jorge on the head, and looked up at Norma. She was smiling. I handed her the giant knapsack. "It's all in there." Then, we all engaged in a group hug.

We decided that Uncle Jer will carry the knapsacks, and that we will leave in the morning, and would not stop.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Reaching Blavand

Before we left, Norma looked through the knapsacks, deciding that we should change before we leave. Norma looked through most of the clothes, and handed each of us the clothes that we used to have. She looked through one of the other knapsacks, and then, after seeing some of the contents, looked straight up at me with a smile on her face. "You didn't have to, Jer!" She got up from the bed, and gave me a huge hug. I returned the hug. She then took one of the hats out of the knapsack and placed it on her head. "I feel distinguished, do I look distinguished?" We all laughed, and then got ready for the trip to Blavand.

We left the inn in a hurry, with the horses being hitched at the side of the inn, which I hadn't seen. We got back on the horses, and rode straight to Blavand, without stop. We did make a few quick stops for restroom breaks, but they weren't long at all. We passed through a few cities, slowing our pace for a small amount of time, but we kept going on at our original pace. As we approached Blavand, the air returned. The same air, that I smelled before. As a child. Tears filled my eyes, I was getting nostalgiac for sure. I wasn't sure if I'd smell the saltiness of the sea from Blavand again, but I did.

We passed the last set of trees, and then, finally, openness all around. It was a field next to us, and on the other side was the water. Up ahead, I could see Blavand very well. I glanced over at the grassy field, and noticed it seemed familiar. I paid it no mind; I must have seen it as a child. I then glanced over once more, until I realized what it was. It was the grassy field in my dream. The one with the Wolf.

I called Skonhed to a stop immediately. This stopped the others too. "Jer? What's wrong?" Norma asked. I just stared at the field. Uncle Jer got off of his horse for a second, and then slapped me. This brought me back to attention. I snapped back to reality, and then waited for Uncle Jer to get on his horse again. We got ready, and then left again.

As the sun was setting, we stopped for another restroom break. We had fields on one side, and open sea on the other. The sky looked like it was on fire. Norma called me over soon before we got back on the horses, and pointed to the sun. It was beautiful. I placed my arm around her shoulder, and looked at the view for a couple of moments. Ah, Denmark, I missed you so. I remember the beaches extensively. The warm tan sand seemingly forming around my feet, making it comfortable to stand in. The cool water being there for me and my friends if we got too warm. The air, just pleasing us whenever we ate outside for dinner, had a picnic or whatever. I stood with Norma, for a couple of minutes, just taking in the view. Finally, I then turned Norma towards me, and gave her a big kiss on the lips. "Thank you so much for agreeing to come here with me." She nodded, and then told me, "I'm glad to be here with you."

We then got back on our horses, and rode for a long period of time, as the night curtain was placed over the sun. The moon was seen once again, it was a crescent this night, and it was beautiful. I looked toward Blavand once more. Didn't seem like such a long distance, just a long stretch of trail between the town and us. With that, we pushed toward Blavand at a swift pace, stopping only when we reached the town. As we passed through, we spotted a few deer in the fields, jumping around like they usually do. It reminded me of the time I was crossbow training, and my instructor ordered me to fire at the deer. I purposely missed, and alerted it so it would have gotten away. The deer didn't deserve a death, it was peacefully grazing.

This brought me onto another thing I hadn't thought about. I was going to see my former friends in Blavand. My friends, such as Dagfinn, Fleming, Gejr, and the rest of the crew. We used to be in the forces together, until I was sent to Weselton, of course. Some bad times, those were, but I'm glad my behavior has improved, greatly.

We finally reached the city in the dark of the night. The kids were sleeping, and I was almost asleep from having no rest the nights before. Uncle Jer decided to lead us to my father's house, as I was in a sleep deprived state, and unfit to lead. We rode at a slower pace, passing by people, long enough to see their face. We reached the marketplace close to my childhood house, and then memories came flooding back. The many times my father and I went to get the materials for dinner, and I had to cook, as my father wasn't going to do it. I remember the one time we had rare imports from America, some sweet sugar cane. It was pretty good from what I'd seen, but my father only bought one cane. It didn't last long.

The house came into view a few seconds later, it was on a nice little cliff, with a beautiful view of the sea. We rode up to the house, went around the side, and hitched up the horses. I kissed Skonhed on it's forehead, and then Dejilig on the same spot. I looked up at the sky, no clouds at all, just a starry night.

Uncle Jer took the lead, and knocked on the front door. We heard a voice say, "Hold on a second! Agh, disturbing an old man in the dead of night." We heard a cane hitting the ground, and then it flew open. The man standing there... was a weaker version of the man I called my father. He was paler than he was before, and skinny. He took a look at Uncle Jer, and said, "Brother, is that you? Jer?" Uncle Jer nodded, and then they hugged. Uncle Jer obviously didn't squeeze, but it was still a heartwarming moment to see.

As Uncle Jer walked past my father, his gaze diverted to me. "And there's Jer II." He gave me a squeeze, and then said, "I see that you're a man now." He was referring to my family. "Yes, father, didn't you get the message from the courier?" He stopped squeezing and stepped back for a second, and then said, "I didn't, the courier must not have come to the right place. Come on in! I have beds for everyone!" I looked back at my family, and nodded. We stepped in. I looked around for a second. There was a couch, and then a chair on the right side of the room, and the kitchen was on the right side, only with a half wall blocking entrance to it. The doorway was right next to it, with no door attached, like always. It was just like it was, only with an update on furniture.

We walked forward into the hallway leading to the bedrooms. My father said, "Now, the first guest room has 3 beds in it, the other has a larger bed," He pointed to us, "Are you two okay with splitting up with your children." Norma nodded. "Oh, yes, I trust Jer I with anything." She gave him a side smile, as Uncle Jer replied, "Well, she referred to me with my official name, guess it's official now." We laughed a bit, and then Uncle Jer handed us the knapsack, and grabbed the children. "I'll help them to sleep, you two get some rest as well!" We nodded, and stepped into the second guest bedroom. I hugged my father again. "It's nice to see you, Father." He nodded, and then said, "I'll be off to bed too, you're lucky I stayed up so late reading tonight." I nodded, and then set the knapsack down onto a chair inside of the bedroom.

I plopped into bed, immensely tired. Norma first got undressed, and then grabbed the robe from the knapsack. "Ahh, I missed sleeping in this. It was always super comfortable." She slipped it on, and then slid into bed next to me. "Good night... Jer II." She said as she was giggling. I replied with "Good night, Norma."


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Blavand

As we were on a long journey the day before, we had barely gotten any sleep the past few days, and I know I haven't even gotten any. Due to this, my father had actually let us sleep in. Uncle Jer explained it all to him. I woke up later in the day than I usually have. When I had woken up, I grabbed my shirt and my pants, and slipped them on quickly. Norma was probably already out in the backyard with the children.

I stepped out of the room, looked into the living room, and then at the backdoor, it was wide open, and I was able to see the sea perfectly. I already heard giggling coming from outside, so I stepped outside to join them. I had taken one step when the children almost tackled my legs. "Pa! You're awake!" Jorge yelled, as Belinde was repeating, "Papa! Papa!" Norma was sitting on a bench to the side, admiring the nice view. The fence that blockaded the yard in was a great contrast to the sky and the sea below, and I just couldn't help but gasp at the view. Jorge was playing with his fighting figurine while Belinde was punching her doll for some reason. She was always violent with the thing.

Uncle Jer and my father were drinking inside of the house. They never waited to drink, not even when I was a child. I decided to sit next to Norma, and just take in the sea air. I reached my arm around her, and grabbed her shoulder once again. She leaned her head against my shoulder, and then we had gotten to talking.

"Jer, your father seems like a nice man." I thought for a second, and then shook my head. "I still don't really like him. He's going to have to do a lot to gain my love back. He was rotten to me when I was a teen, and sent me off to Weselton without a second word. He didn't even come to our wedding, even though he apparently was able to make the trek to Corona. What's that about?" Norma shrugged. "He seemed welcoming to me. Though he did dismiss our marriage as a 'courier mistake'. A little strange." I nodded. "It's very strange.

Soon after, it was dinnertime, for which, my father had cooked some pheasant. We had a wholesome meal, with the normal dinner conversations going on. We were laughing along to some of Uncle Jer's stories, when all of a sudden, my father had to excuse himself. He had gotten up, grabbed his walker, and rushed to the bathroom. We looked at each other, confused. Uncle Jer seemed a little nervous, but he continued his story. When my father returned, he sat down on the chair, and then asked me, "Jer II, can I speak with you in a couple of minutes?" I nodded, and then looked at Norma, who shrugged again. I then reached over for another bun. Uncle Jer began to tell another story.

A few minutes after dinner, and while Norma tucked the kids in for bed, I went up to my father. "Father, what do you need to speak to me about?" He obviously was having trouble finding what to say. "What, I needed to tell you... is... that I am sick. Very sick." I stood back for a second. "Are you going to infect me?" He laughed and then said, "No! This disease isn't contagious, otherwise I wouldn't have let you guys in." I stepped back up, and asked, "Well, what are you sick with?" My father shook his head. "We don't know. I tried asking my doctor, but he was clueless. He did say that I didn't have that good of a chance of living." I looked at him for a second, and then told him, "No wonder you look so weak." He nodded. "To be honest with you, son, I'm scared. I'm very scared." At this point, I grabbed him, and we hugged for a couple of seconds. "You're a fine man, son." He told me.

After that vulnerability from my father, Norma stepped out of the kids room, wiping her forehead. "Belinde is getting harder and harder to get to bed each night." My father nodded, and then stepped behind the half wall. "Do you need a drink, Jer's wife?" She nodded. "It's Norma, by the way." He grabbed a glass, poured some beer into it, and handed it to Norma. "I'll have to make some more snaps soon, willing to help, my brother?" He referred to Uncle Jer. "Oh, yes, of course!" I then grabbed Norma, and asked her, "We should sit outside, and talk." She nodded, and we walked to the backyard.

We sat down on the bench outside of the doorway, and began to look up to the stars. We returned to the position we were in earlier, my arm around her, with her head leaning against my shoulder. "You know what my father had to tell me, Norma?" She shook her head. "No, I don't." I then gulped, "Well, he has some uncurable, non-contagious disease. The doctor doesn't even know what it is." Norma shook her head, and replied, "Wow, that's insane. It was tough to figure out what had Jorge sick those few weeks, do you remember?" I nodded, it was scarlet fever. A lot of people had passed on from the disease, but Jorge soldiered through it.

"Remember that man who tried telling us that the Black Plague was returning? The crazy man on the corner?" She nodded. "He also tried telling my fortune, that you were going to die in the Southern Isles. You never even went there!" I chuckled. She was right, I have never been to the Southern Isles. "It's just a shame he died, the corner was always a bit quieter after that. No family, either." I then thought, my father could have been like that, had we not returned.

She then remembered another thing, "Remember when Anika's child made you a crossbow, and you used it whenever you practiced, just so you made him happy?" I nodded, her child was a sweet one. The crossbow he made wasn't the best, but I could still use it about as well as my normal one. "Or do you remember when that man tried to con me into buying 'The Golden Crossbow'?" She burst out laughing at this one. "He didn't even show you it, and he wanted you to give him 500 coins. That wasn't a very smart move." We laughed about this one. "Do you remember that Spanish man who had traveled to Weselton? He was... oh, what was his name, Enrico!" I nodded, and then burst out a perfect impression of him, "Do you have any coca?" Coca is a Spanish food similar to an Italian pizza. Norma burst out laughing again.

Norma sighed, took a sip of her beer, and then asked, "Do you know what we're going to do?" I thought for a second. We could stay in Denmark, perhaps living in my father's house, or finding another place to live, or returning to Weselton. "Well, I already grabbed almost everything from Weselton, what else would we need?" She shrugged. "I think we should live here. Honestly, it's a more open place, and a better place to raise a child than Weselton, do you know what I mean?" I nodded. "Oh, oh, look at that! It's a falling star!" She pointed to a point in the sky, when I spotted it. "Wow, you never see that everyday." She turned, and then smiled towards me. "Oh, you big grizzly bear, come here." She then grabbed me, and we smooched.

We had returned to our spot on the bench, cuddling together, when Norma then brought up Belinde and Jorge. "Jorge is already becoming a strong young man. I think we should start training him for swords." I thought about it for a second. He did seem pretty strong. I would have to train him, using the sword that Rej had given us. "I believe we should. It's around time for him." She nodded, and then we looked at the stars a bit more. Norma then said, "Well, I'm beat, we should probably get to bed, eh?" I nodded, and we both went into our room.

I undressed once again, as Norma put her robe on. As I laid down, I thought a bit more about my father's condition. "Good night sweetie," Norma said as she kissed my forehead. I pulled the covers over me, and then, dreamed once again.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Dreams and Other Things

After I had fallen asleep, I had very vividly started to dream. First, I had a dream that I was running. I'm not sure from what, as that part is fuzzy, but I do remember that I was running. It was in a grassy field, similar to the one we passed by while riding to Blavand. I was running as quickly as I could, as the shadow of the thing that was chasing me was catching up. Near the point of my breaking point, the Wolf appeared once again. He stabbed me in the back, seemingly killing me, but I was still conscious as he spun me around to land on the back, plunging it through my chest. After that point, he laughed, and the dream faded away. I woke up, sweating, but I fell back asleep a few minutes later.

As I drifted off to sleep once again, I was in a dark space. All of a sudden, there was a bright light coming from a specific point in where I was. I started to walk over to it, when I heard the most discordant sound I've ever heard. It was like the sound of 10 crying children mixed with the loud squealing of hundreds of bats. It was torture, and in the light, appeared my father. He started yelling to me, as the discordant sound started to fade. "Why didn't you visit me?" He was yelling repeatedly, with his face getting redder and redder from both the amount of yelling he was doing, and also the crying he has been doing.

I ran up to hug him, but he kept popping up out of my grasp each time. At one point, he appeared a long distance away, and when I tried to run for him, I ended up falling. I jumped myself awake at this point, and the sun was just getting up. I was thirsty as hell, I had been sweating most of the night. I grabbed a shirt, stepped into the kitchen, and opened the ice box. I snatched the milk near the top of it, and I looked at the time on my father's grandfather clock. It was a bit after 5 o'clock. That explains why the sun was creeping up. I set the milk down on the kitchen table, and grabbed a glass from a cupboard above the sink. My father seemed to keep the house in good shape.

I poured milk into the glass, twisted the cap back onto the milk jug, and placed it back in the ice box. I sat down at the table, and drank the milk for a little bit. I then decided to sit at a chair that my father had, facing outside one of his big windows. I sat down on it, set the glass of milk onto the table next to me, and watched the sun rise. It was a beautiful sight. Soon, however, I heard a few footsteps coming from behind. I looked over to who it was, and it was my father. I grabbed the milk, and then went over to help him sit down. "No, no, Jer, I'm fine, I can walk." He wasn't using his cane.

He plopped down onto his couch, and then asked me, "Hey, can you pour me a glass of milk, son?" I nodded, set my milk down again, and then ran over to the kitchen. "What are you doing up so early, son?" I shrugged as I poured him a glass. "I woke up from a dream, and couldn't fall back asleep." I grabbed the glass, and handed it to my father. He thanked me, and then said, "I couldn't sleep much last night. I haven't been able to sleep since I... uh, you know, recieved the news." I nodded, as I watched my father's shoulders slunk. He coughed a bit, and then asked me, "Hey, how do you like this robe? I bought it a couple of months ago as I went to the market to buy food. I saw it, and the old one your mother made me wasn't really that good anymore. So, I grabbed this." I nodded. "I like it. Looks to be made from good material." He nodded as he sipped his milk. "Yeah, it was pretty expensive, but people have been helping me out lately just because of the, uh, thing."

I grabbed my milk, set it on the table in front of me, and sat down on the loveseat across from my dad. "Father... why did you force me to join our military forces?" He set his milk down also, and then got ready to speak. "To be honest, son... I was scared. Your mother was great with raising a child, but once she passed on, I had no idea what to do." He winced as he was telling me this. "Jer... I had no idea what to do, so I tried to push you into some people who could take care of you." I nodded slowly. "They never told me that you were being drafted... One day, I just had someone tell me that, 'Hey, your son Jer, I heard he was drafted to Weselton' and I just, didn't know." This was news to me. I honestly thought he was a jerk from the time after I left for Weselton, but hearing that it all was miscommunication...

I nodded again, and I then asked, "Was miscommunication the reason why you missed our wedding?" My father nodded. He started scratching his beard. "Jer, honestly, if I had known you were getting married, I would have went to Weselton immediately. You know that your mother would have wanted me to, anyways." I agreed, and then took another sip of milk. "Jer, what's your wife's name?" I replied to him with, "Norma, and my children are named Jorge and Belinde." He nodded. "Norma, that's a nice name. She's a beautiful woman, Jer." I thanked him, and then finished my milk. I grabbed the glass, stood up, and placed it on the kitchen counter.

My father stood up as well. "Jer... get over here and give your old man a hug." I walked over to him, and gave him a hug, trying not to hurt him at all. "I'm... I'm scared, Jer." My father spit out over my shoulder. "Me too, father, me too." Soon, my father started tearing up, I assume, and he buried his face into my shoulder. I stood there, hugging and trying to console him, when Norma walked in. I motioned for her to wait a little bit, and she gave me a thumbs up.

My father then sat back down, and then asked me, "Can you grab my cane? I want to go for a walk with your family today." I nodded, and walked slowly to his bedroom to grab his cane. When I stepped into the bedroom, I looked around next to his bed for the cane. I spotted it, grabbed it, and then brought it back to him. "Thank you, son." He stepped up, and then asked, "Well, do you want to go revisit some of the places from your childhood?" Thinking about this offer, I had actually gotten excited, so I nodded, and then ran to get ready. Norma was reading a book, and I gave her a thumbs up. She put the book down, and asked, "This is the most excited I've seen you in awhile. What's going on?" I told her, in my giddy voice, "We're going to take a walk around town!" She made an excited motion, and then got up out of bed to get her dress back on.

We both got ready, and then woke the children up, telling Uncle Jer that we were going for a walk with my father. I held Belinde in my arms, as she was repeating, "Papa!" Jorge was walking with Norma, who was telling Jorge about our plans to sword train him. We walked to the front door, where my father was waiting, and we all walked out of the front door.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Strolling

We walked down to the street, my father and me in front, while the rest of my family was behind us. Belinde was still in my arms. Uncle Jer was still inside, but the rest of us were walking down the walkway to and from the house. My father was going at a slow pace, but when you're walking with your family, it doesn't really matter.

My father started a conversation first. "So, son, I heard that a certain Weselton guard had tried to kill the Queen of Arendelle. Now, tell me. Was that you?" As I looked over at him asking the question, I winced. He must have noticed the wince, as he then asked, "Ohh, it was you! I can tell by the wince." I started to apologize, and was about to explain it, when my father continued, "No, no, it's alright, son! It was your duty, I'm sure. Follow orders, we trained you well."

I nodded, and then asked him a question, "How are you holding up? Any problems with anything?" He shook his head. Belinde started reaching her arms out to Norma. I handed her over to Norma quickly, and then continued talking to my father. "I noticed you were drinking with Uncle Jer the other day, is that good for you?"

My father shook his head, "Of course it isn't, but the way it's been going for me, it's... well, useless to try and stay healthy. I'm feeling weaker everyday. It's a surprise I'm even coming out here with your family." He then turned around to Belinde. "Hello, sweetiekins, can grandpapa hold you?" She turned away from him, which led to him shrugging. "Never was good with children." He chuckled.

We made it to town after a few minutes of small talk. The first place we visited was the shop on the corner. When I was a child, it was mostly stocked with novelty items and knick-knacks. Nothing changed, from what I could see. I remembered that the owner was one of the oldest men I had seen, and from what I could tell, he was somehow still kicking. He stood at the counter looking at us. "Well, are you going to buy something?" We had JUST walked in.

My father walked up to the counter. "Well, do you have any baby toys?" The man at the counter nodded, and picked up a box. "Let's see here... hmm, does the little one want to decide what she wants?" Norma shrugged, and brought Belinde up to the counter. Belinde then looked into the box, and grabbed another doll. Oh boy, another one to beat up. She then held the doll towards Norma, who then said, "Well, I guess she wants this one."

The man at the counter grabbed the doll, and then set the box back down. "That will be 10 coins." I was reaching into my pocket, when my father stopped me, and grabbed 10 coins himself. "No need to pay, it's my treat." I thanked him, and was thinking of a way to pay him back as we were leaving the store. Belinde was holding the doll, and she was happy, I could tell. We then stopped at a small restaurant a few buildings away.

I ordered a nice steak, while Norma asked for mixed greens. Never understood what she liked about vegetables, but she loved them. We all ate, while having normal dinner conversations, laughing at stories, like a normal family dinner. Soon after we finished, my father paid for the meal. I thought, he really wants to spoil us, doesn't he? We walked out of the restaurant, when I noticed a small man looking around, with him gripping a sword on his belt. I motioned for my family to stay in the restaurant, and then approached the man. He asked, "Are you... agh, let me grab this." He grabbed a piece of paper out of his pocket, and then looked at it for a second. "Jeroonimus Kroh?" I corrected him, and then asked him why he needed me. "Oh, because of this." He pulled out his sword, and then said, "We won't forget what you did to the Wolf."

I sidestepped his first chop, as he said, "Come on, you just have to stop and let me take you with me." I shook my head, and then pulled out my sword, the one Rejnar had given me. I took a slash and tried to knock the sword out of his hands. "Please, just leave me alone!" I yelled to him. He then hacked in my general direction, missing me entirely. I then grabbed onto the top of my sword, and then blocked his next hack. This block almost knocked it out of his hands. The man was recovering from the recoil, as I took my sword, and then tackled the man to the ground. People were looking at me from all over, and I knew that I didn't want to kill him in front of everybody. I then took his sword from his hands. After this, I held him to the ground, and then called for help.

The man tried to power himself up, but he was unable to. A guard came running over immediately. "What's the trouble, sir?" he asked. I then explained the situation to him, which made the guard take in the man, and thank me. I grabbed my sword, and placed it in the hilt. I nodded to my family, who came walking out at a fast pace. My father hugged me, saying, "You really do know how to handle yourself. That was great fighting." I smiled and thanked him, while Norma and the kids were thanking me too. We decided to walk back home, as we were all exhausted. Once we arrived, Uncle Jer was there reading a newspaper. "Hmm, did you hear that the Princess in Arendelle had gotten married?" I was surprised, must have been to a different prince.

My father stepped into the house slowly, and went for a hug on Uncle Jer. "Oh, it's good to see you, brother." Uncle Jer reciprocated the feelings. My father then said, "Walking for a few hours is tiring, I'm going to lay down." He started to walk to his room, when he asked, "Hey, Jer II, can you come with me?" I nodded, and then walked with him to his room. He leaned his cane on the table next to him, and then laid down on the bed. "Good thing I can walk around in pajamas all day. Funnest part of not having a job." He then started to close his eyes, and then said, "I'm not feeling good anymore, Jer... I have a feeling that my last day is soon..."

I nodded slowly, and then went up to hug him. He hugged me back, and we stood there for a couple of minutes. "Jer... I just want you to know that I'm really sorry. I never treated you right, and I regret that every day of my life. Now that I'm dying... well, it's really a dream to see you here again." I nodded, and then told him, "Father, I missed you, even though I didn't really like you. Now I see that you aren't truly a bad guy, just a person who was given the wrong end of the stick."

My father turned over to his other side. "The last day is tomorrow, I can tell..." I patted him on the shoulder, and walked out of the room. I told the others about his words, and we sat for a few moments, with no words said.


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I walked out of his bedroom, and stepped back into the living room. I pulled out my pocket watch, checking for what time it was. Just over 15:00, it looked like. I still had a bit of the day to go on. I wasn't in the mood for anything at the time. I sat on the loveseat behind me, buried my face into my hands, and started thinking. After a little bit, I started to sleep. With my head in my hands, I slept through dinner. The thought of losing my father was difficult. I hadn't yet fully grasped this.

A few hours later, I jumped awake. I looked around, the lanterns on the wall were lit, and I was lying on the loveseat. On the coffee table in front of me was a plate with a few pieces of chicken on it, and a few carrots. Beside it was a note that said, "Here's dinner. Enjoy, Jerry Beary. From, Norma." I sat up, set down the note, and then started to eat. It was good chicken, and the carrots were pretty good too. After I finished my meal, I checked my pocket watch. It was 00:34. I felt really tired, even though I had slept about 5 hours. I decided to grab a glass of milk once more, as it could help my feeling of tiredness.

As I sat there drinking, I thought about the books I had gotten Norma. I decided to sneak into the bedroom, steal a book, and read it to pass the time. I knew that I wouldn't get much sleep on this day. Once I finished my milk, I tiptoed to the room, opened the door quietly, waved at Norma, grabbed a book, and left. Once I had gotten to the coffee table, I placed the book down, grabbed the empty glass of milk. I set it on the table in the kitchen, and then looked at the book title. "The Forgotten King of Weselton". This book must be talking about before Weselton became a Duchy. I decided to read it, hoping it would pass the time for a few hours. I grabbed the candle sitting on the table, and walked outside to read it. I set the candle down onto the table next to the bench, and started reading.

I read about Weselton for about 4 hours, before I looked to my side, and noticed the sun rising. I sat up from the bench and cracked my back. I set the book down, and then checked my pocket watch once more. It was 4:53, and the sun was rising now. I walked a bit to the middle of the backyard, and looked towards the sun. It was beautiful, as always, but it seemed different this time. There were clouds in the sky, except there were a couple missing from around the sun. I looked at it for a little bit. The clouds seemed to contrast against the sun, and it looked even more great than before.

I noticed someone stepping out of the house. It was Uncle Jer, this time. He walked over to me, and gave me a hug, and said "Bear... I love you..." I nodded as he was squeezing. I told him, "Uh, father is showing signs... that today might be..." I began to cringe, it was always tough to talk about people passing away, but when it's my father, or in this case, Uncle Jer's brother, it was even tougher. "He might... pass on... today..." I finally choked out. Uncle Jer stepped back from hugging me, and looked me in the eyes.

He told me, slowly, "I knew he wouldn't last much longer..." We both nodded to each other. I stepped past him, and grabbed the book and the candle. The light on the candle had since burned out from the last time I lit it, but it didn't matter much to me. I returned them into their original positions, and then met Uncle Jer inside of the living room. Uncle Jer asked me, "Jer... before all of this, did you even love your own father?" I thought about this for a moment. I remember cursing at his name, always thinking that he never cared for me. I looked up at Uncle Jer, and slowly nodded. I didn't love my father then, but that feeling had changed. Uncle Jer heard this, and nodded as well. "You thought he didn't love you, so you didn't return the favor. Correct?" I confirmed what he said.

He then turned around, and then asked, "Well, what's the point of not seeing him at all? We might as well talk to him a bit." I nodded, and we both walked into my father's room. We both sat down on two chairs that were in the room. My father always had a few to reach things. Uncle Jer woke him up quietly, and my father sat up very slowly. He grunted as he looked at both of us, and then laid back down. "I'm not getting up today." He said assertively. My uncle and I both nodded, and I asked my father, "How are you feeling?"

My father then looked at me and said, "Well, honestly, Jer, I feel like trash. My bones are as frail as a rusted out door handle, I think..." He said as he started stretching his left arm out. Uncle Jer both looked at each other worriedly, and Uncle Jer asked my father, "Well, we're going to stay here if you need us."

My father then started moving his hand as if to shoo us out. "Give me a few hours, I'm not in the mood for sappiness right now, and I sure as hell aren't going to die right now. Come back in a little later." Uncle Jer and I both nodded, and left the room. We walked to the living room again, and we sat down on the chairs. We talked for a little bit about my father, and how we would spend the time together. Uncle Jer then said, "Well, if you'd want, I could grab your father's cards, and we could play some poker or something." I then replied, "If we're doing this with my dad's cards, I'd want to play his favorite card game, and that's war." Uncle Jer shrugged, and then went to grab the cards.

I sat there thinking for a moment. My father was never a morning person. I knew where I had gotten the trait from. We shared our un-morningness between each other, and we both always knew that the best time of the day was the afternoon. Uncle Jer walked back into the room with the cards, and then set them on the table. We played for a few hours, when Norma woke up. She walked out of the bedroom, spotted me, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "You didn't come into bed last night. I hope you're feeling okay." She told me. I affirmed her that I was alright, and that I would be fine, even though the pit in my stomach meant I wouldn't be fine.

As Uncle Jer and I played, with Norma watching, we began to talk. About my father, about Rejnar, about everything. Uncle Jer told me, "You know, Jer, I was talking with your father a few days ago, and he wants you to stay in this house."

I was taken aback. "Wait, he wants me to take the house?" Uncle Jer nodded. I was about to ask why, when I realized it was perfect. There was a room for Norma and I, a room for Belinde and Jorge, and a room for Uncle Jer. "He'll want us to live all together I assume, then?" Uncle Jer then shook his head. "Not me, I uh... need to get going on." I was surprised. "I have been saving up coins for awhile now, and I think I will buy another house up here for myself."

I nodded. It only made sense. Besides, we didn't need a caretaker for the children, Norma and I could take care of that. As I finished up the round of War we were on, Uncle Jer asked me, "You want to go check on him?" I nodded. We walked into his bedroom, and my father was lying, awake. I said hello to him, and he reached out his hand to me as he looked at me. I grabbed with my hand, and my father said, "Jer... I want you... to have the house..." My father coughed, and then waited for a response. I nodded of course, and then my father looked to my Uncle. "If you're moving up here... keep watch on them... okay?" Uncle Jer nodded, and then my father started to talk.

"I'm not sure how much longer I have left... but I want you two to know... I love you..." He coughed a bit more, and then continued. "Not in just a friendly way... either... I was so glad to... to see you guys... you were here to see me before I passed on..." He said. He started to close his eyes, as tears started flowing out. "I'll see your mother soon... Jer... do you want me to tell her you love her too?" I nodded... and finally, it hit me. This will be the last time I will see my father alive. "And... keep your family going... Jer... teach Jorge to use a sword..." I nodded again, as tears started falling down my face.

My father then asked, with his lip quivering, "Will you guys give me... one last hug?" He coughed a little bit, and then opened his arms. I looked over to Uncle Jer, he was a mess too. We both gave our father a hug... and then... he said, "I'll miss y..." before finally passing away. The tears turned to sobbing, as Uncle Jer and I held each other in our arms, remembering my father, and his brother. We told my father, "We'll miss you too..." before we left the room to notify the doctor. Uncle Jer decided to leave to the doctors office, and I stayed with my family. I cried into Norma's shoulders many times that week, remembering the times I've had with him. As the doctor showed up, he came over to comfort me.

The next few weeks were a mess. Many of the townspeople came to mourn, even though they some hadn't even met him. I met some childhood friends over the few weeks, and we all remembered my father. Many people accepted that it was our house, and the ownership was changed over to us. I was cleaning out my dad's room so that we could move in there, when I found a note in one of his drawers.

"By the time you read this, I'll most likely be gone. If this is Jer, I just wanted to let you know, that you'll never learn how sorry I am. I always felt bad about everything I had done, and I decided to get something to make up for it. Check for the hidden compartment in my closet. ~ G. Krogh"

I decided to check in the closet for what he meant, and when I found it, I was brought to tears immediately. It was a broach, the same broach my mother used to wear, and another item was in there too. It was a crossbow. Not just any crossbow, but it was the highest-quality crossbow that I have ever come across. My father must have bought it before we had come, and he was planning on giving it to me.

Soon, Uncle Jer moved in across the street, and he visited often. At this moment, I am sitting on the bench outside of the backdoor, watching my children play, with Norma next to me... and if I could change anything about my life...

I wouldn't change a thing.


End file.
